


Where Worlds Collide and Days Are Dark

by EclecticInkling, starlitcities



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Action, Angst, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Smut, Spoilers for Skyfall, The James Bond AU no one asked for but the fandom needed, The character death isn't the main charas but it's still important, a little bit of bokuaka, birthday gift, character injury, it sticks pretty close to the movies in some ways so be warned if you haven't seen it yet, iwaoi - Freeform, smut with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 22:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5223332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EclecticInkling/pseuds/EclecticInkling, https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlitcities/pseuds/starlitcities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If it meant sitting behind a screen and watching your partner die, or going into the field and dying with them…” Oikawa trails off, before he turns from looking down to meeting Iwaizumi’s gaze. “I’d choose death any day.”</p><p>Iwaizumi’s stomach leaps and does a flip when Oikawa latches onto his gaze and holds him there. It takes him more effort than necessary to swallow, and it’s difficult for him to find his voice. “Are all you Quartermasters this crazy?”</p><p>“Only the ones in love, I think.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1000ft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000ft/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Mars! We love you lots, and we wanted to give you a present that would show you just how much we love you. We hope you enjoy this, because we had a fuckin blast writing it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I was just doing my job. You know that.”
> 
> “And I’m just doing mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a little heads up for you all, there is a scene in this chapter that gets a little gruesome. Feel free to skip over it if you can't handle it, you won't be lost if you skip that part! It starts with "There's a switchblade inside his back pocket" and ends at the line break.

Gunfire.

Bullets fly past Iwaizumi’s head, screaming as they whizz by his ears and bury themselves into the concrete wall behind him. He dives to the left, taking refuge behind a pony wall.

Iwaizumi takes a look at himself, assessing both his situation and condition. He’s fine on ammunition, for now. But he could use an escape route, maybe a getaway car. Definitely some medical attention. His shoulder has seen better days. A rookie mistake and overconfidence landed a bullet in his shoulder right before the primary target made his escape.

Iwaizumi is now trapped with four of his lackeys, all of whom are shooting directly at him. He hisses as he bumps his shoulder against the wall, but adrenaline keeps him focused, quieting the pain into nothing more than a whisper at the back of his mind.

“ _Q,”_ he hisses, louder than necessary. It’s not like he’s really hidden from the enemy anyway. “I could use a little help here.”

“ _004,_ needs _my_ help? You sound like you’re doing just fine to me.”

Iwaizumi curses and shoots blindly around the corner of the wall. The answering gunfire sends him back to cowering, eyes scouring the room for an escape. “Now isn’t the time for your sarcasm.”

“You wound me, I’m being honest!” Iwaizumi can hear Oikawa’s smug grin curl behind fingertips. They could argue about it—in fact they have before—the difficulty of being in the field versus behind a desk. But this wasn’t the time nor the place.

“I need a way out, and fast,” Iwaizumi demands, a desperate plea for help. He’s at his limit in this situation, with no way to move forward or back. He needs Oikawa to come through with some sort of plan and quickly. “Make that _now_ ,” he snaps, cracking the butt of his gun across the enemy’s skull and driving his face through the stucco. He puts two bullets in another guy’s shoulder before he makes a break for the closest window. He prays none of the shattered glass will damage him as he dives through it, out onto the fire escape.

“Ok, ok. Just give me a moment.” There’s a clacking over Iwaizumi’s headset, Oikawa frantically typing at his precious laptop. And then, “Go down the fire escape and take a left. There should be an alley you can escape through.”

Iwaizumi makes quick work of descending the fire escape, taking the stairs three, four at a time, hopping over and through the levels until he hits the ground. _Left_ , he thinks, and breaks into a run. “Now what?”

“You’re an agent aren’t you?” Oikawa slides another bit of sarcasm to him. When the response is Iwaizumi loudly, deliberately reloading his gun—a figurative move, but he gets the message—he clears his throat. “Keep heading straight, you should find yourself on a backstreet in about one hundred meters. Grab a vehicle and get moving.”

Iwaizumi darts down the alleyway, whizzing past high buildings and brick walls until he flushes out into a narrow street packed with parked cars. He _almost_ settles for a dinky Volkswagen in muted blue, until his eyes land on something much nicer across the street.

Hot wiring a car takes too long anyways, he thinks as he swings a leg over the white Hayabusa.

“What’d you snag?” Oikawa asks, hearing Iwaizumi fiddling with the ignition cover. Iwaizumi is about to tell him, but he opts out when he twists the battery and ignition wires together and the bike comes to life, the low purr of the engine rumbling between his legs. He smirks at Oikawa’s silence when he revs the engine.

“Cheeky,” Oikawa mumbles. Iwaizumi lowly chuckles as he takes off down the street.

Iwaizumi knows the pursuit isn’t over. He’s lucky he got as much breathing room as he did, but that little fight back in the flat might cost him. “Q, do you have eyes on 002?”

The last Iwaizumi heard, Sugawara had taken off after their original target. It’s Sugawara’s first time working with Iwaizumi, and the two of them being split up doesn’t sit well with him.

“He’s chasing down the enemy near the railway. If you hurry, you can catch him.”

Iwaizumi speeds up, cutting hard corners and weaving through tight pathways. “Q, can you patch me through to him? I can’t on my own, I think my comm is damaged.”

“Or it just likes me more than 002,” Oikawa teases. Nevertheless, there’s soon static over Iwaizumi’s headset, and then his comm clears. He hears Sugawara cursing softly under his breath.

“002, you there?”

“Ah! 004! Where the hell have you been?”

“Dodging bullets,” Iwaizumi snorts, “how are you holding up? I’m on my way to you now.”

“Could be doing better.” There’s a gunshot over the comm, and the squeal of tires, and then Sugawara grunts, “Better hurry before this guy gives me the slip.”

“Stay alive, would you? M likes good reports.” Iwaizumi banks a hard left. He peels out from the tight alleyways and into an open intersection, eyes landing on Sugawara just ahead. Their target is weaving through the Istanbul traffic a good distance away, and pulling further from Sugawara with every new turn. Iwaizumi whizzes past Sugawara and tries to close the distance between himself and the target.

“002, don’t fall behind,” Iwaizumi orders. He shifts gears and accelerates to a dangerous speed, where his surroundings start to blur and extra noise dies off against harsh wind.

It doesn’t take Iwaizumi too long to catch up to the target; the tricky part is getting him off of his motorbike. Whoever this man is, he’s skilled, expertly dodging through traffic just a hair out of Iwaizumi’s reach. Iwaizumi looks ahead of the target, taking in surroundings and trying to narrow down the moves he could make.

There’s a bridge ahead that passes over the train tracks. It looks risky, and that’s why Iwaizumi bets it’s the route he’ll take. He solidifies his choice when a train horn echoes from a short distance away.

Sure enough, the man banks the front of his motorbike hard off the corner between the crosswalk and the pedestrian staircase, launching himself off of the bridge, bike abandoned, and landing with a hard thud on top of the incoming train. He glances back with a smug smirk, as if he’d already lost Iwaizumi.

Well, if he wants to play it that way.

Iwaizumi steels himself and jumps from the bridge, following after his target with confidence.

“Did you just get on the train?” Oikawa is suddenly in his ear, sounding genuinely surprised.

Iwaizumi wants to smirk about it, but his focus is on the enemy, and the hard drive tucked in his jacket. “Well, on top of it. Give 002 a route to follow me.”

“I’ll work on it now. How’s the view?”

“Not really a time for sightseeing, Q.” Iwaizumi tunes him out as he curls his hands into fists, steadying his balance on the rumbling rooftop.

The target glances back once more. His expression grows surprised at the sight of Iwaizumi behind him, and he spins around fully to face Iwaizumi head-on. There’s nowhere left for either of them to go. Iwaizumi wanted to get things over with quickly, but from the looks of it, this guy has no intention of going down easily.

There isn’t too much time spent sizing each other up and running over mental scenarios. The enemy swings first. The punch is powerful, wide, and Iwaizumi dodges it with a step outward, ducking his head and aiming for an open ribcage. For all the force of the wind around them and the moving train below, the guy shows excellent balance as he jumps out of Iwaizumi’s reach. But neither of them keep that distance for long.

The rush at each other, colliding force against unmovable force.

The blows hurt when Iwaizumi gets them. The knuckles against his ribs and against the pressure points in his arms are going to leave some serious bruises later, but he ignores them for now. He needs that hard drive, and he’s running out of time.

Sugawara is almost frantic in his ear as he reports that he’s out of drivable road. Iwaizumi hears him speedily assembling a rifle, and jams his elbow into the enemy’s thigh in attempt to twist him into a headlock. If he could just get the target in position for Sugawara, they could end this neatly, without further incident.

The enemy struggles against his hold, twisting out of Iwaizumi’s grip just enough to reverse their positions. Iwaizumi steps wrong, and instead of countering the swing and re-gripping his chokehold, he takes a row of hard knuckles straight into his wounded shoulder. The pain hits him so hard it takes every fiber of his body not to shout, or collapse. He barely manages to get away with just a stumble backwards.

But that stumble is enough to throw the momentum out of his favor. The target grabs him before he has the chance to recover. Iwaizumi feels the enemy’s arm wrap tightly around his neck, almost choking in pressure, and he slams an elbow back into the guy’s chest. Still, the grip doesn’t let up.

“I’ve got a shot but it’s not clean.” Iwaizumi hears Sugawara’s voice crackle through the comm. He tilts his head to look at the oncoming tunnel, and tries to jerk free of the forearm pressed hard against his Adam’s apple.

 _So now Oikawa chooses to be silent,_ Iwaizumi thinks, concentrating on conserving his air as he tries to give Suga a better shot.

Even Iwaizumi knows a shot at this distance would be tricky, even for the best of agents.

“Take the shot,” he hears it, voice deep and unwavering.

Kuroo.

“I might hit 004.” Sugawara’s voice is concerned, hesitant.

Iwaizumi can’t see it anymore, with spots forming in his vision and lungs scraping at the last bits of oxygen, but the tunnel is close. Sugawara is under pressure. He feels bad, having to put him in such a tight spot on his first mission with one of the best agents in MI6. He should have been more prepared.

“ _Take the shot.”_

He hears Sugawara take a sharp breath. There’s a bang, and then pain. Indescribable pain.

With a weak cry, he releases his grip on the target, who all but throws him from the train in his moment of weakness. Iwaizumi tumbles from the roof and onto the ground beside the railroad. He gasps, winded from the impact, and feels his cheek scrape against the sharp rocks. It all pales in comparison to the blinding pain in his shoulder however.

There’s a shout in his ear. Sugawara’s hysteric voice as he sees the result of his misfire. Iwaizumi can’t focus on the words. Can’t focus on anything except the agony of his wound and the rumbling of the train as it carries his target further from his reach.

All he can think about before he blacks out is his failure to retrieve the hard drive as the train dives into the tunnel and out of sight.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Six months.

Six months of temporary leave, completely cut off from the operations of MI6, and Iwaizumi already feels like he’s going to explode.

Sue him for being foolish enough to think that Kuroo would give him any insight to current events. Six months of silence from what holds him together is equivalent to torture.

Not even Oikawa has spoken to him since he blacked out in the rubble on the side of those rusty train tracks. He’d thought, of all people, Oikawa at least wouldn’t leave him in the dark, but apparently he doesn’t know his quartermaster as well as he once thought he did. And for some unspoken reason that Iwaizumi won’t ponder, he’s pissed about it.

The only true friend he apparently has left now is his half-empty bottle of Laphroaig single malt whiskey.

He stares through the TV screen, letting LCD’s burn into his eye sockets and cue in on little bits of news every now and again. He scratches at the stubble along his jawline, eyes rolling shut and whiskey pooling over his tongue, diluting irritation into numbness.

Fatigue begins to settle over him, as it always does when he reaches a certain emptiness of the bottle. But before he can fade into another lengthy sleep, his eyes flutter open and catch the words “MI6” and “bomb” flash across the screen. His eyes shoot back open.

He scrambles for the remote, turning up the volume of the TV to hear the news report. On the screen is the image of the MI6 headquarters, now smoking from the side that Iwaizumi knows housed Kuroo’s office. He feels his stomach drop.

There’s no way Kuroo got caught in the explosion— the man has far too much good luck and sense for that. It’s everyone else that Iwaizumi feels dread for, and he can’t stop the memory of his last target’s retreating back, hard drive still in his pocket.

Iwaizumi is willing to bet everything that hard drive was involved in this attack. It holds all of their vital information, all the passwords and security clearances to their headquarters, as well as all their lists of undercover agents. Whoever had hired that target to steal the hard drive is clearly putting it to use. And, if that’s case, then more attacks are sure to be coming.

He stands, trading the glass of whiskey for his phone on the side table. Kuroo’s number is still saved in his speed dial, and he presses it without even thinking. He doesn’t need to think in this case.

The phone rings twice, moments spent in silent anticipation, and then the call’s picked up and he hears Kuroo answer, “This is M.”

“M,” he responds, and god it’s good to be using code names once more. “It’s 004.”

“What are you doing? You’re supposed to be—”

“Call me back in,” he interrupts before Kuroo can say another word. He doesn’t want to hear about resting or healing. That’s all he’s been doing for the past six months, and now it’s time for him to get back to work. “I’m the best field agent you have. Let me finish this.”

There’s silence on the other end.

Kuroo is clearly hesitating. He knows Iwaizumi is right. There are few at MI6 who can match Iwaizumi’s prowess in the field, and even less that can match his level of motivation for this particular mission. All factors considered, Iwaizumi is the best and only choice to finish the job. Kuroo just has to accept that.

“You need me,” Iwaizumi presses when Kuroo’s silence stretches on too long.

Finally, there’s a long sigh.

“I’ll send a driver to pick you up. Just try not to get injured this time.”

“Don’t let one of our agents shoot at me then.”

Kuroo splutters, and then Iwaizumi hangs up. He throws the phone onto the couch and heads to his bedroom to change and shave before heading to MI6.

  
  


* * *

 

 

“Underground?” was Iwaizumi’s first word out loud after listening to Kindaichi give him the short version of everything he has missed during his leave of absence.

“Yep,” Kindaichi nods, punching in a code and pressing his hand to a scanner. The light switches from red to green, and he pulls the heavy metal door open, gesturing for Iwaizumi to step through first. “Things aren’t looking too good since the bombing at headquarters. M is on edge. And well...it’s good to have you back.”

Iwaizumi keeps his sarcastic comments to himself; Kindaichi is a good kid, but just as naive as they come. Iwaizumi isn’t back _yet_. Coming back from his leave to a dinky underground substitute is the first step. The gruesome tests are second. And if a board of internal affairs decides he’s ready, only then does he get his gun back. It’s cute that Kindaichi believes in him enough to think he’ll get through all of this with a breeze. At first, Iwaizumi thought so too, about a month and a half into his leave.

Now, there’s an inkling of doubt in the back of his mind.

“Welcome to the new MI6,” Kindaichi gestures to the shoddy layout. Crap fluorescent lighting and foldable tables spread out across the floor. A mess of wires attached to more wires and computers, and each individual in a suit looking completely out of place. Iwaizumi controls his urge to wrinkle his nose, and loses it altogether when he spies a familiar face standing about five feet from the entrance, leaning against a pillar and tapping his thumb nonchalantly against a phone screen.

“Well, some of us were eager to have you back,” Kindaichi smiles, tilting his head towards the agent who is pointedly not looking their way. “He’s been waiting since he got word.”

“Is that right?” Iwaizumi mumbles. He could care less, really. He’s allowed to be bitter about not hearing from his quartermaster for six months, right? His mind runs through the flashback for the millionth time, recalling Oikawa’s complete silence in the end until now.

Yeah, bitter is putting it nicely.

“Kindaichi is exaggerating,” Oikawa says, looking up with a bright smile. That smile falls when his gaze lands on Iwaizumi’s face, eyes searching, almost cautious. There isn’t the teasing grin that Iwaizumi is so accustomed to seeing as he continues, “I just thought it’d be prudent to catch 004 up on current events as soon as possible.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Iwaizumi bites. Oikawa’s brows furrow at the scathing tone.

Kindaichi senses the tense air and sucks in a sharp breath, pivoting on his foot. “This way, let’s go this way,” he urges, “M wants to see you before you get started.”

Iwaizumi silently follows him. Both he and Kindaichi are irritated that Oikawa casually falls in line, walking shoulder to shoulder with Iwaizumi as though there isn’t a giant bubble of awkward lingering between them.

No, that’s not right. Oikawa is just an asshole who likes to exploit the tension until it dissolves.

“How’s that shoulder?” Oikawa asks quietly. Iwaizumi would almost say he’s concerned if he didn’t know the asshole better.

“Fine,” Iwaizumi mutters. “Your ego still as big as I remember?”

Oikawa’s mouth drops open in protest, but when he sees Iwaizumi isn’t looking at him, he clamps his mouth shut into a thin line. “You’re angry.”

“Now what on earth would give you that idea?”

“I didn’t _have_ a choice,” Oikawa hisses, dropping the beat-around-the-bush game, “you didn’t either.”

“Well it still would have been nice to hear you say _something_ about it. I mean, Jesus Christ, is it so hard to make some sort of protest? It’s not like that was our first time working together or anything.”

Oikawa stops, bringing Iwaizumi to a halt right alongside him. His expression is completely serious, more so than Iwaizumi had ever seen. “I was just doing my job. You know that.”

“And I’m just doing mine.”

Iwaizumi turns away and continues walking. The conversation cuts short when Iwaizumi follows Kindaichi upstairs into an office and sees Kuroo standing next to someone, staring at a file resting in his palm. He’d be lying if he said his thoughts didn’t scramble in that moment.

Six months of being gone. No connection to anyone, and suddenly they’re all swarming around him with expectations, and without warm welcomes. Not that Iwaizumi expected something warm and fuzzy to make his insides tingle.

“004,” Kuroo breathes, tilting up from the file in his hand and snapping it shut. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

Iwaizumi gives him a wry grin. “I could say the same for you. But that would be a lie.”

“Can’t say I don’t deserve that,” Kuroo admits sadly. He throws the file he’s holding onto the desk and gestures to the two, beat up chairs in front of him. “Why don’t you have a seat? We have a lot to discuss.”

Iwaizumi drops into a chair, watching Kindaichi scurry to join Kuroo’s side. Oikawa stands behind him, too close for his taste but there’s an odd comfort in it, so he makes no movements to tell him otherwise.

“I assume Kindaichi filled you in on most of this fiasco?”

“He did.”

“Great, then we can skip over that. Then you know what comes next.”

“A physical,” Iwaizumi nods.

“ _And_ a mental exam,” Kuroo adds, “given that you pass, I’ll put you to work right away.”

Iwaizumi has half a mind to ask what would happen if he doesn’t pass. But with Kuroo’s eyes as narrowed as they are, he leaves the question for another conversation.

“Oikawa will be with you for the duration of your tests,” Kuroo’s eyes flicker over Iwaizumi’s head. “Don’t get distracted, hm? You two can play catch-up later.”

Once again, Oikawa is silent. Although, Iwaizumi can’t disagree with him here. From the start, Kuroo wasn’t exactly pleased with the dynamic of his and Oikawa’s teamwork. Praise came few and far between with Kuroo, and as soon as Oikawa became Iwaizumi’s new quartermaster, praise stopped existing. Iwaizumi can only assume Kuroo isn’t fond of Oikawa’s flashy arrogance, or maybe their easy banter that hovered on the edge of outright flirting.

Either way, it looks like the two of them are walking on thin ice, and despite Iwaizumi being bitter about his sedentary six months, he would do just about anything to get back out there right now.

He gives Kuroo a silent, solemn nod and stands.

“I’ll go get changed.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

Oikawa stands against the wall with a clipboard in hand, eyes shifting between Iwaizumi and the test coordinators to his left. Iwaizumi is pacing himself on the treadmill, respiratory monitor strapped around his face and eyes straight forward.

Oikawa pulls his lip between his teeth and stares hard at his own writing to keep himself from staring even harder at his partner.

Iwaizumi isn’t in the shape he used to be, obviously. Six months out of the field and confined to his house had taken away some of the steely edge Oikawa is used to seeing in Iwaizumi’s movements. It isn’t that Iwaizumi is out of shape— he can probably still beat Oikawa black and blue if he ever wanted to— but he’s… different. Slower, and even a little bit softer.

Oikawa’s eyes run up and down. The messy shave, hardly close to Iwaizumi’s usual sleek appearance. The redness in his eyes and cheeks, the heavy bags between them. Oikawa kept quiet about it when he first saw Iwaizumi walk through the doors, but for the constant shifting of his hands, as though he were anxious.

Oikawa would be lying if he said that Iwaizumi’s apathetic remarks back there hadn’t taken him by surprise. But after taking a good look at him now, he sees why.

Six months of isolation must have dwindled his resolve as an agent. Oikawa bets Iwaizumi spent day after day replaying that last mission in his head, cursing himself over what went wrong, probably turning to alcohol as stress relief until he began to blame everyone else for all the rest. When he first went on leave, he probably had so much energy he didn’t know what to do with it. And that turned into having little to no energy to even get out of bed in the mornings.

He can’t really blame him for putting the burden on himself. A relatively new Quartermaster, a _brand_ new field partner… the success rate of the mission going in was already low. But Iwaizumi wasn’t the kind of agent to rely on odds.

He’d make sure the mission succeeded, even if it cost him his life. Oikawa had already known that about Iwaizumi before they were even partnered up. He knows now that determination must have weighed heavily on Iwaizumi’s shoulders, crushing him in the wake of what he perceived as failure, with no one there to share the load. Watching Iwaizumi now, that fact appears crystal clear to Oikawa.

“Alright 004, you can step down.”

Oikawa snaps from his thoughts to see Iwaizumi push off of the treadmill, ripping the mask from his face and shoving it into the coordinator’s chest. His breathing isn’t as erratic as Oikawa thought it would be, but the bleak looks on the coordinators’ faces say otherwise.

Iwaizumi just retreats away from the treadmill and takes the time to cool down while they record results and move to set up the next part.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Oikawa stopped counting the number of sit ups, and instead thought about what number Iwaizumi would give him if he asked him to rate the pain in his shoulder.

Oikawa wouldn’t dare say it out loud, but Iwaizumi is amazing. He hasn’t shown any sign of weakness in his facial expressions, despite the rest of his body screaming in agony. All the wires and monitors reading his vitals say he shouldn’t be pushing himself this hard, and yet here he is, cranking out crunches, stone faced like he could keep going all day.

Oikawa grows even more impressed when Iwaizumi later switches to doing pull ups, because that surely has to be agony for him. He’s taken off his shirt by this point, and Oikawa can see the ugly scarring of where the bullet had hit, red and knotted and not quite healed.

He shouldn’t be putting such a strain on his shoulder with a wound like that, but Iwaizumi continues anyways, just as he always did. It was one of the things Oikawa admired most about him, and also one of the things he hated most.

He wishes Iwaizumi would just listen to what his body is telling him. The pain is apparent, noticeable only through the slightest of winces with every pull up. Oikawa doubts the coordinators will pick up on such a tiny signal, but Oikawa knows. He knows what that change in Iwaizumi’s normally composed expression means, and he has to bite his tongue to keep from pleading for Iwaizumi to just stop already.

Oikawa keeps quiet; Iwaizumi will go until he drops, probably.

Definitely, Oikawa thinks, when the test is over and Iwaizumi collapses against the cold metal, chest heaving and clawing at oxygen, and a hand twitching in attempt not to grip at his shoulder.

Oikawa is stuck between being marveled and mortified. He can’t even begin to sympathize, especially since the last time he put a gun between his fingers was during a required training that lasted all of five minutes. Oikawa was good at talking himself out of things he didn’t like.

“Iwa-chan,” he mumbles, soft. It holds too much sympathy that gets mistaken for pity when Iwaizumi’s eyes snap towards him, razor sharp and void of warmth. The small part of him that wanted to walk over and comfort Iwaizumi dies out with that tense look. Maybe he shouldn’t have used his endearing nickname right now, but it’s all he could think to use, seeing Iwaizumi in this much distress.

He bites his lip and settles for hovering around Iwaizumi as the agent catches his breath, knowing that anything more from him at this moment would be unwelcome.

There’s something in Iwaizumi’s expression that makes Oikawa’s heart ache. He’s hunched over, sweat beading on his brows and across his shoulders, leaning heavily against the metal of the pullup bar. But there’s more to it than that. Something deeper that Oikawa can’t seem to touch.

Iwaizumi looks like a broken man.

Oikawa has no idea what to do, and even if he _did_ , he’s not sure he could. But he doesn’t have the luxury to sit back and mull it over right now. He had six months to do that. And while he did think about Iwaizumi quite a lot, he never considered that he would come back like this.

“Iwa-chan,” he repeats, insistent. He doesn’t close the distance just yet. If he moves too soon, Iwaizumi will just turn tail and run. But the tension between them is unbearable, and Oikawa can’t just it stay that way.

If he and Iwaizumi are going to work together again, be friends again, they have to resolve this and be honest. _He_ has to be honest.

“I wanted to, y’know?” Oikawa sighs, finally cutting through the silence. “I sat at a desk, bored out of my mind, listening to Kindaichi gush about you and I thought about it. Calling you. Checking up on you being locked up in your house. I almost tried once.”

Oikawa watches Iwaizumi stiffen at the _almost_.

“What could I have said to make you feel better? I’m sorry?” Oikawa pulls fingers through his hair, an absent-minded gesture but it wipes away nerves. “The Iwa-chan I’m used to doesn’t really like apologies.” Oikawa looks down at the floor. “Back there, hearing Sugawara panic… I didn’t really know what to do. Not much I could do behind a computer screen at a time like that.”

Oikawa hears Iwaizumi move from his position against the pull up bar. “I do a damn good job as a Quartermaster. As _your_ Q. But we all screw up. Even me,” he admits quietly with a shrug of his shoulders.

It’s hard to get the words off his tongue. They don’t normally enter this kind of sentimental territory. Oikawa can’t help but talk in circles and avoid looking Iwaizumi straight in the eyes.

“It wasn’t all your fault back there,” he says quickly, and looks up to see Iwaizumi standing right in front of him, towel around his neck, face stoic and unreadable.

“So are you going to apologize or not?” Iwaizumi asks him, point blank.

Oikawa stares at him incredulously. _That’s_ his reaction to him stumbling through some kind of apology?

Instead of smiling, he wrinkles his nose up like he’s just tasted something sour. “ _God_ no. If you would stop hogging all the blame and making us look bad though, that’d be great.”

It is an apology, just not the cliche _I’m sorry_. They don’t do cliche. This works just fine.

Iwaizumi chuckles softly and breezes past him to go clean off for the next test. Oikawa waits until he’s completely out of sight before the smile stretches slow and wide across his face; he ducks it behind his clipboard and shakes his head.

  
  


 

* * *

 

  
  


Their little conversation might have cleared the air between the two of them, but it didn’t do that many favors for Iwaizumi overall, and Oikawa isn’t sure if he should be irritated, or concerned. Maybe a little bit of both.

Iwaizumi stands staring at the target across the room, a gun steady in his hand, a roll of his shoulder and a deep breath. Oikawa watches him, the slightest bit of hesitation riddled in his body with the pressure of five pairs of eyes on him. They’ll be lenient about his first shot, probably. After that, Iwaizumi _has_ to perform.

The first loud _bang_ sounds off. Iwaizumi’s quickdraw is as fast as ever, with his arm fully extended and eyes following the path of the barrel.

Oikawa turns to look at the target sheet, eyes widening a fraction when he sees the bullet not slightly off target, but completely off the mark. His eyes are stuck on the sheet, in just about as much disbelief as everyone in the room, including the shooter himself.

He near jumps out of his skin when the second shot goes off, seeing it still miss the headshot target that the coordinators are looking for.

Oikawa’s eyes lower from the page to his notes when the third, fourth, fifth shots go off, repeatedly until Iwaizumi empties the clip, now standing a good ten feet from the decimated target sheet and glaring at it with disdain.

He’s thankful he managed to squeeze something in to lift Iwaizumi’s mood before, because right now, there is absolutely _nothing_ he could say that would pull Iwaizumi from the state he’s in, seething at his own mistakes, probably cursing the hell out of himself for his bum shoulder.

The first thing that jumps into Oikawa’s mind is that damn mission. Should he have said something that day? In Iwaizumi’s final moments that wavered between being asphyxiated or fatally shot? During Sugawara’s panic? What would have been the right words?

Could Oikawa have even gotten them out loud enough for Iwaizumi to hear him?

Or maybe, it’s not that day. It’s those six months. While Iwaizumi rotted away with his mind dull and clouded with liquor. Oikawa should have broken the rules, sent him a gift, stopped by, called at _least_ to say “hey, I still think about you.”

Kuroo was insistent about keeping Iwaizumi out of the loop for the duration of his leave, and while Oikawa thought it was a weird request, he didn’t fight it. One, he didn’t have the authority to, and two, Oikawa knows Iwaizumi trusts Kuroo with everything, so for the sake of his agent, he did too.

With the way things look now, maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do.

Iwaizumi spins around and slams the empty gun onto the table before he storms out, and Oikawa takes one look at the coordinators’ blank faces. They all move in complete silence. Oikawa can only imagine how irritating it is to have these men applying pressure on Iwaizumi’s back with those blank faces of theirs.

He can’t begin to even comprehend the pressure of having these faces behind a two-way mirror as Iwaizumi drops himself into a chair across some psychologist—the best of the best amongst MI6, because apparently Kuroo cares enough to bring in the best.

“So, if he passes, you’re going to throw him back to work, just like that? Sounds kind of brutal, even for you, _boss_.” Oikawa rambles, standing beside Kuroo, opposite of the two way mirror.

“Pretty cheeky for a Quartermaster, aren’t you?” Kuroo’s smirk is crooked. It’s polite, masking the true intent of wanting to do something much more painful.

“You didn’t hire me just for my good looks, did you?” Oikawa smiles over the tip of his pen, but the tension between them can easily be read as wanting to break each other’s fingers.

Kuroo doesn’t look at him. Instead, he stares through the glass to see Iwaizumi shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket, looking uncomfortable and irritated. “If he passes, I don’t see why not.”

Oikawa turns away from the mirror for a second to look right at his boss. He feels somewhat responsible for Iwaizumi’s condition, and it bothers the hell out of him that he feels like Kuroo is treating his best agent like a damned puppet on strings. Kuroo didn’t see him struggle through the rest of these tests, and part of Oikawa wonders if Kuroo would even care if he had.

“And if he doesn’t?” Oikawa asks the question that everyone else had been avoiding.

Kuroo turns from the mirror to look at him as well, eyes tightening when he sees Oikawa isn’t going to back down without a solid answer.

“Then he’s of no use to me.”

Oikawa knows Kuroo doesn’t really mean that. It’s a cover to save face in front of the coordinators. But still, hearing the words from his mouth, clipped, tight, nothing indicative of a lie makes Oikawa’s mouth dry out.

Oikawa gets it now.

It’s not because Kuroo meant the words, because he didn’t. It’s the fact that he chose work over friendship, abandoning loyalty for “the greater good” or whatever people try to call it. Because when you’re hovering between life and death, you find it hard to separate your emotions when you hear “Take the shot” spoken with urgency and devoid of concern over someone that’s supposed to mean something to you.

And when your usually defiant Quartermaster actually obeys the rules when you need him the most, it’s hard to think positive of him because he’s just _doing his job_.

Oikawa bites back any words he might have for Kuroo. It’s not his job to fight Iwaizumi’s battles, even if he feels like jamming the edge of his clipboard into Kuroo’s throat for that one. Plus, he can’t really blame Kuroo. He did the exact same thing his boss had done.

Oikawa turns back to the two way mirror in silence, praying Iwaizumi passes these tests and gets back to being a field agent, so he can go back to mumbling silly things into his ear and trying to get a rise out of him, or messing with him on the rare occasion he drops by the office.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi stares blankly across the table at the psychologist who’ll be administering the test. He can feel the weight of Kuroo and Oikawa’s gazes on him, even with the thick glass of the two-way mirror between them. He knows they’re watching him, evaluating him, weighing his answers against his previous psychological evaluations. Especially Kuroo. Oikawa, perhaps, not so much, which relaxes him somewhat.

Iwaizumi doesn’t really care much for this test. He never has. It’s a waste of time to let some psychologist poke and prod at his psyche before laying down a judgment, as if that psychologist would know him better than Iwaizumi knows himself. And Iwaizumi’s already made his call. He knows he’s ready to go back into the field, whatever the result of this test may be.

The psychologist adjusts his glasses. “I thought we could start with a few word associations, just to warm us up. I’ll just say a word and you answer with whatever comes first to your mind. For example, if I say ‘day,’ you could say-”

“Wasted,” Iwaizumi answers without hesitation, still staring at the psychologist, his expression almost bored.

The psychologist seems unnerved by this. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat under Iwaizumi’s gaze and clears his throat. Iwaizumi just waits, ready to get this test over with.

After a moment, they continue. “We’ll start easy then,” the psychologist says with a smile. “Cloud.”

“Rain.”

“Sun.”

“Sky,” Iwaizumi sighs.

The simple questions continue, with words that have nothing to do with why Iwaizumi is there. Moon? Dance. Ball? Sport. Window? Door. On and on and on, it feels, and Iwaizumi isn’t sure what they’re getting out of this until, finally, the psychologist asks, “Gun.”

And that’s what Iwaizumi has been waiting for.

He gives a sardonic smile. “Shot.”

“Agent.”

“Prerogative.”

“Q.”

Iwaizumi grins. “Asshole,” he answers, throwing a glance towards the two-way mirror where he knows Oikawa is watching. He can almost imagine the affronted squawk Oikawa would make, and that keeps him going.

“Murder,” the psychologist asks. Iwaizumi tilts his head.

“Job.”

“004.”

“Identity.”

“M.”

“Bastard,” Iwaizumi snorts. He makes no attempt to hide the venom in his tone; let the psychologist make of that what he will.

All in all, however, Iwaizumi thinks he’s doing a pretty fair job in this evaluation. He hasn’t yet said anything that Kuroo and the psychologist wouldn’t be expecting. He could be doing worse, considering what he’s gone through and all the test issues from earlier.

Perhaps he relaxes too soon though, because then the psychologist asks, “Skyfall,” and Iwaizumi freezes. A ball of dread settles in the pit of his stomach. Cold anger surges through his veins, and he shuts his mouth tightly before he can say anything he might later regret.

That word is sacred ground, and Kuroo knows it. That bastard.

“Skyfall,” the psychologist repeats in the silence of the room, and Iwaizumi narrows his eyes.

“Done,” he answers firmly before standing from the table. He walks from the room without a second glance back.

There’s a bathroom around the corner from the examination room that Iwaizumi then retreats to. It’s a hiding place just as much as a room to cool his temper for Iwaizumi, who isn’t in the mood to deal with Oikawa’s worried hovering or Kuroo’s confrontations at the moment.

He slams the door shut and yanks his shirt off as he walks across the room, grunting loudly when he lifts his arm up and pain shoots straight through his shoulder, chest, and arm, just as it had with his earlier physical evaluations. The sharp sting is a reminder he doesn’t need of his failures.

Iwaizumi throws his shirt to the floor in frustration. He leans over one of the sinks, cold porcelain beneath his hands and even colder glass against skin where he presses his forehead to the mirror in front of him. He shivers outwardly, goosebumps breaking out along his forearms and back, but the temperature doesn’t help to cool his anger. Irritation with Kuroo, of course, but mostly irritation with himself.

He’s a failure, a wreck, a worthless agent with a bum shoulder: that’s all these tests show. Maybe the psych evaluation can be excused, but the physical one? The gun test? Surely not.

He’s a far cry from what he had been only months before, and whether or not his scores are deemed passing, Iwaizumi has already let himself down. He told Kuroo he’s the best; is that even true anymore?

He leans back and looks at himself in the mirror. Shadowed eyes, grim expression, a red scar splashed prominently across his shoulder. His fingers reach towards the wound and skim over the healing skin. There are bumps in the scar, little pieces of bullet Iwaizumi knows is still embedded in the wound, and he wonders.

He knows from what Kindaichi had told him that MI6 still can’t trace the guy he’d been chasing after when he got shot. They have nothing to go off of. No fingerprints, no strands of hair, not even a bullet fragment. But Iwaizumi still has some. There’s evidence lodged right inside his healing skin. And maybe he’s a failure as an agent, but he knows these bullet fragments mean he still has some use left inside of him for this agency.

There’s a switchblade inside his back pocket— the one he carries with him on every mission— and he pulls it out without thought. The blade is still as sharp as ever. Iwaizumi never lets it get dull, and so he knows it’s in prime condition to cut through the wound he presses it against.

The tip penetrates the skin and Iwaizumi bites back a hiss. He presses further in, through the new skin and scar tissue, blood pooling to the surface, until he’s able to slip the knife’s tip under a bullet fragment and dig it back out. The silver piece falls into the sink with a soft clatter.

Iwaizumi goes back in for another piece. And then another. And every cut hurts, but this is what he’s been trained to do, and so he doesn’t complain or stop. He digs and digs and digs. Soon five, silver, blood-stained fragments rest in the palm of his hand, which he then washes off and packs neatly away for later examination.

At least, with this, Iwaizumi is able to still help. Even if he turns out worthless for actual field work.

  
  


* * *

 

 

He finds Sugawara at a desk just outside Kuroo’s new office. The door to the office is closed, and Iwaizumi can see Kuroo holding some sort of heated conversation with the unknown man that had been present when Iwaizumi was being briefed. Iwaizumi hadn’t taken much notice of him then, but now he wonders what the man is doing here and why Kuroo looks so frazzled by him.

“Doing desk work now, 002?” Sugawara jumps and looks up at him in shock. His eyes are wide, frantic, scared, and Iwaizumi only gives him a second to acknowledge the greeting before he’s looking back at the argument taking place in Kuroo’s office. “Who’s the new guy? The one with M?”

Sugawara looks over his shoulder for a moment and lets out a tiny ‘ah’ of realization. “Sawamura Daichi, Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. He’s overseeing M’s transition.”

“Transition?”

“You mean you haven’t heard?” Sugawara asks. Iwaizumi glances down at him and shakes his head, taking note of the small frown across Sugawara’s face. “M’s being let go once this situation is resolved. The Committee no longer has confidence in him after losing that hard drive.”

Well, that’s certainly news to Iwaizumi.

He looks back at the office as he mulls over this information. It’s terrible, but Iwaizumi can’t help the small bit of satisfaction he feels at knowing Kuroo’s under fire for that mission too. Iwaizumi isn’t the only one being deemed a failure.

But, try as he might, he can’t picture anyone else filling Kuroo’s shoes once he’s let go. Kuroo is the only M Iwaizumi’s ever known, and he’s likely the only one cold enough to ignore personal feelings and get the job done.

Can MI6 really be MI6 without Kuroo leading it? Will Iwaizumi even be there to find out?

He shakes his head quickly. Now isn’t the time for those thoughts.

He tosses the bag of bullet fragments onto Sugawara’s desk and says, “Have Kindaichi analyze those. For M’s eyes only,” and then turns on his heel to leave.

“004!” Sugawara calls, stopping Iwaizumi with a hand wrapped around his wrist. Iwaizumi looks over his shoulder and sees Sugawara shrink back, growing suddenly bashful. “Iwaizumi,” he starts again, quieter this time, and now he has Iwaizumi’s full attention. “I just… I wanted to apologize to you. For not calling or visiting or anything, and also… If it wasn’t for that shot, if it wasn’t for my terrible aim, you wouldn’t have been injured, and I just…” He takes a deep breath, eyes cast to the side. “I’m sorry. It was all my fault, and I’m sorry.”

It’s the first real apology Iwaizumi receives since returning to MI6, not counting Oikawa’s veiled words from earlier, and he can’t say it doesn’t feel nice to hear. But Sugawara isn’t the one who needs to say it.

“That shot would have been tough for anyone. Even for me.” Sugawara melts in relief at that comment, nervous tension rushing from his body all at once, and then brightens even further when Iwaizumi gives him a smile. “Just warn me if they ever let you go back out in the field, alright?”

“Oh, ha ha. Very funny,” Sugawara answers. He points a pencil at Iwaizumi in threat. “Don’t make me tell Q on you.”

Iwaizumi scoffs. “As if that brat could do anything to me.”

Sugawara laughs, genuinely, more out of relief to have Iwaizumi back than anything. For once Iwaizumi feels a bit of warmth, the welcome he won’t admit he’d been expecting. He’s glad to see Sugawara isn’t too shaken up over the mishap six months ago. “Suga,” Iwaizumi breathes, watching him stiffen over the use of his nickname rather than his codename.

“Yes?”

“When you do return to the field,” he shifts his eyes away, “let’s work together again.”

Sugawara’s smile splits across his face without any restraint, like he’s just swallowed the sun. “Absolutely.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi stands in Kuroo’s new office, a serious downgrade from the one back at headquarters—or what’s left of it—and watches his boss pace back and forth with a file in hand. His file, to be more exact.

His test results are in.

They could have skipped the formality of some big reveal filled with heavy stares and suspense, but with this new _Chairman_ lingering about, Kuroo is sticking to the rulebook.

Iwaizumi glances over at him. Sawamura Daichi.

His face is kind, hair short and feathery and dark, eyes round. He could learn to loosen up a little though, looking stiff as a log in a suit he’s definitely not used to wearing. Or at least not comfortable in. He looks like the kind of guy that could paraphrase a guide book on “How to be an Agent” and all of his gun knowledge is locked inside training facilities.

The thought of Kuroo having to humble himself and obey a guy like this makes Iwaizumi bite his cheek. It must be irritating, and Iwaizumi is enjoying it thoroughly.

“Well, 004. It appears you’ve been cleared for active duty again, surprisingly,” Kuroo says, “Congratulations.”

His tone is completely sarcastic, not that Iwaizumi suspected anything different. Formalities for the Chairman.

Sawamura stares at Iwaizumi, watching him shift to fasten the button of his suit with some pride. “004,” he clears his throat. Iwaizumi turns his attention to him. “Why did you come back?”

Iwaizumi has half a mind to make a smart ass remark about his interrogation being over and done with, but Kuroo burning holes into the side of his head ebb the attitude. “What would have done, Chairman? When you see your place of work up in flames?”

The question is a little tense, Iwaizumi can practically hear Kuroo’s teeth grinding behind his lips.

“I would have enjoyed my time off,” Sawamura quips. It isn’t about the bombing. He’s just pointing out that Iwaizumi got away with getting off of leave early because he’s well liked. A favorite, even.

Iwaizumi tilts his head and gives a smile so haunting it replaces the tension of authority with fear. “What I enjoy, is doing my job, sir.”

Sawamura is clearly at a loss for words, lips mashing into a thin line and retreating with nothing left to say. Iwaizumi turns to look at Kuroo, watching his expression fall blank. “Anything else?”

Kuroo pushes a different file at him, acting as though what just happened was nothing more than a simple exchange of words. “Shanghai, that’s where you’re headed. Thanks to the shrapnel you gave us,” Kuroo blatantly ignores Sawamura’s darkening stare, “and with help from the CIA, we managed to relocate the shooter from Istanbul. We need you to find him, interrogate him for that list, and get rid of him.”

“Any limitations?”

“We lost agents in that bombing. I don’t care what you do, as long as he’s dead.”

Not even Sawamura puts up an argument to the intensity of Kuroo’s tone. Iwaizumi however, is just itching to get back into the fight, and hearing that all bets are off is the best news he’s had.

“Q will give you everything you need before you go,” Kuroo flicks his wrist, gesturing to Oikawa waiting outside the room.

Iwaizumi gives one last nod before he takes a step outside.

Kindaichi waits until the door shuts to whirl around in his chair and look back at Kuroo. “M… I didn’t know 004 passed his evaluation.”

Kuroo takes one look at Iwaizumi’s file before he tosses the hard copy into the trash bin.

“He didn’t.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

“So, you passed?” Oikawa hops to Iwaizumi’s side, a spring in his step because he already knows the answer, he’s just waiting for confirmation out of courtesy.

“Obviously,” Iwaizumi snorts, descending the stairs quickly. “I’m going to Shanghai. You coming with?”

“If M lets me,” Oikawa whistles, “you know how he is about our proximity.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t reply to it, but the silence is agreement enough.

“Not left, right,” Oikawa snags Iwaizumi by his elbow and wheels him in the opposite direction, descending another staircase and pushing through a bolted door. Iwaizumi idly wonders just how deep this place goes.

“Where…?”

“Well, you’re back in active duty now. I’ve got new toys for you!” Oikawa sings, and points forward to his work station.

It’s an organized mess, chaotic in some places and immaculate in others. Iwaizumi knows how this works. He can’t touch anything because Oikawa remembers where he leaves everything. So he touches stuff anyway, because hearing Oikawa whine about it in his ear later is kind of comical.

“Sorry, I didn’t get time to wrap them and put a bow on it,” Oikawa digs out a box from a drawer and walks it over, placing it into Iwaizumi’s hands.

Iwaizumi undoes the latches and lifts the lid, eyes running across sleek metal. A pistol, all black, thicker than he’s used to seeing but he puts his faith in Oikawa. Just underneath it is a small, silver-looking rectangle.

Iwaizumi is used to getting a bit more than a pretty gun and some kind of chip. He arches a brow and glances up from his gifts.

“Gift number one,” Oikawa watches him curl the handgun into his palm. “A Walther PPK. I’ve installed it with a hand-print sensor, so it’s yours and yours alone.”

Iwaizumi curls his lip, subtly impressed. “And this?”

“Oh, a radio!”

“...A radio,” Iwaizumi stares at him, holding the rectangle up next to his face. 

“Well, I need a way to find you, don’t I? It’ll let me track you, and put out a distress signal if you need it.” Oikawa points out the little button on the top. 

“S’ a shitty christmas…” Iwaizumi grunts.

“Don’t be ungrateful.” Oikawa closes the box and pushes it further into his chest. “And  _ don’t _ lose them. I only loan things, and I want them back in—”

“One piece. Yes. I know,” Iwaizumi sighs.

Oikawa smiles at him, all soft lips and warm eyes. It’s an expression Iwaizumi rarely sees, but it never fails to make his heart skip a beat just from how  _ genuine  _ it is. And if Iwaizumi has any lingering doubts about Oikawa’s continued fondness for him, they’re all wiped away with that single look. 

Oikawa steps closer and presses a hand against Iwaizumi’s shoulder, right where his bullet wound is, and tentatively, almost bashfully, meets Iwaizumi’s gaze. 

“Be careful out there, Hajime,” he murmurs, quiet enough that only Iwaizumi can hear. “I don’t like when my things get damaged.”

“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll come back with all your things in tact.”

Oikawa doesn’t move his hand, or his eyes.

Iwaizumi frees one hand from his gift box and places it over Oikawa’s, giving him a slow nod. “ _ All _ of them.”

The moment only lasts for just that, a moment. But it’s enough. 

Oikawa pulls his hand away and retreats to his desk, leaving his warmth against Iwaizumi’s suit jacket. “Well you should get going. I’ll meet you there.”

“That’s if M lets you.”

“Who do you think I am?” Oikawa rolls his eyes. “Have a safe flight, 004.”

“Try not to miss me too much, Q,” Iwaizumi throws over his shoulder as he heads to leave. Oikawa laughs hard and sarcastic, like the idea is preposterous. But they both know the words meant much more than some silly little plane ride.

  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allie's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/eclecticinkling)  
> Remmi's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/tendousatori)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iwaizumi really ponders it as he digs his fingers into a stress knot in his shoulder blade. If he could have Oikawa, would he give all of this up?
> 
> It scares him that almost everything in his being says he would do it in a heartbeat.

The city lights glitter against the dark expanse of night sky, lighting the roads with a shine as bright as that of the sun. All around, cars whiz past, heading to one destination or another while the city’s inhabitants revel in their nightly pleasures, whatever those may be. Flashing signs and the twinkle of passing car lights fill Iwaizumi’s gaze as he waits outside the empty building his intel had mentioned just the night before.

Shanghai. The Pearl of the Orient. And in it, his target, walking right into Iwaizumi’s waiting hands.

Iwaizumi watches the door to the office building, keeping a watchful eye for the very same male he’d let get away six months earlier. His insider had mentioned some sort of job, an assassination that’s meant to be kept quiet, which means Iwaizumi’s target will be needing an abandoned area to set up and complete his work. The office is the ideal spot for that.

It’s somewhere around ten when a black car drives up and parks just outside of the building. Iwaizumi snaps to attention and keeps his eyes glued to the door of the car, hopeful. And when the man steps out of the vehicle— the very target Iwaizumi’s been waiting for— he grins.

 _Bingo_.

The target glances around furtively, careful not to draw attention but still on the lookout for anyone who might be tailing him. He has no idea that Iwaizumi is camped just across the street, and he never thinks to check. He walks inside the building not long after, and immediately shoots the unlucky night guard who had drawn the shift for this night.

Iwaizumi stands and quickly crosses the street while the man disappears further into the building. He doesn’t want to draw the attention of the target, but he can’t afford to lose him either. So he presses against the wall and waits until the target rounds the corner to the elevators before slipping inside the front doors and following after.

He holds back, waiting for the target to get into the elevator, and then watches the numbers beside the elevator change as the target climbs higher into the building. The numbers stop and the fifteenth level, and that’s where they remain. That’s where Iwaizumi needs to get to.

He glances around, looking for some sort of stairway he can utilize so as not to alert the target to his presence. And there, on the other side of the room, he sees one.

He bolts up the stairs, climbing as fast as possible to catch up to his target. He’s winded by the time he reaches the fifteenth floor, but he makes good time and remains unheard, which is the crucial point to this plan of his.

He’ll catch his target off-guard, and pull all the necessary information out of him before he even has a chance to retaliate. This time, Iwaizumi wouldn’t let him get the upper hand.

Creeping along the hallway, he peers into each room he passes until he finds the one he’s looking for. Ceiling-to-floor windows all across one side of the room, with the glare of the neighboring building’s sign reflecting into the night and masking any hidden figure in the room. And there, only a few meters away, Iwaizumi’s target, laying on the ground and assembling a sleek rifle.

He’s facing an apartment in the neighboring building, from what Iwaizumi can see. There’s some sort of party occurring, and guests mill about the room in an ever-changing blur of colors. The assassin has his sights set on only one of them, however. Iwaizumi can see the way his head follows the crowd’s movements, swaying with every step of his own assigned target.

Iwaizumi slips into the room, quiet, and inches across the floor with steady, careful steps. He’s lucky his target is so focused on his task, and so isn’t paying attention to the shift in shadows and almost-silent pad of feet. He comes within a few feet of his target before the assassin suddenly lifts his gun and takes a shot.

Someone in the other building drops, and the party turns into chaos. Too late to save the victim, Iwaizumi launches himself forward, grabbing his target by the collar of his shirt, and yanks him back away from the window, away from his gun.

The target falls to the floor, flung across the room by the strength of Iwaizumi’s arms. He scrambles to stand and recover, but Iwaizumi is there before he’s able to, kicking his ribs and sending the target crashing to the floor again with a pained groan. The target stretches out a hand, and it’s on this that Iwaizumi places his foot, pressing and pressing with all of his weight until he hears a sickening crack and the target cries out in pain.

There’s no chance of the target being able to use his gun now, and that fills Iwaizumi with grim satisfaction. He lifts his foot from the target’s hand and slips it under his torso, flipping him onto his back with one, great kick. Then, kneeling down, he grabs the collar of his shirt and hoists him into a sitting position, where Iwaizumi can glare straight into the target’s face.

“You have something I need,” he growls, low and dangerous. There’s a threat hidden in his tone, a promise of pain that makes his target cringe back in fear.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do,” he disagrees, mouth curling into a feral grin. “And you’re going to give it to me.”

He’s got his target at a disadvantage, unarmed and unable to fight, just as Iwaizumi had wanted. He can see the truth of his statements reflected in the fear of his target’s eyes. He knows exactly what Iwaizumi’s after even if he refuses to admit it.

Iwaizumi’s been in these situations before; he knows what it takes to break a man’s silence. Enough pain, and any man is willing to talk. Enough fear, and a man will sell out even his own family for the chance to live. It should be a simple matter then for Iwaizumi to draw out the information he came for, but even with the threat of more pain, his target remains frustratingly tight-lipped.

It’s time to raise the stakes then. Show his target just how serious Iwaizumi is about this.

He stands and hauls his target to his feet, keeping one hand bunched in his collar and the other wrapped tight around his target’s left arm. The window his target shot through has shattered and the busy noise of the city below calls out to Iwaizumi like a siren’s song. He pushes the target back, forcing him to stumble across the room to the broken window where Iwaizumi kicks the rifle out of reach and then holds the target to the edge, just inches from a fifteen-story fall to the street below.

His target’s eyes widen with the realization.

“Tell me what I want to know,” Iwaizumi demands. He pushes the target back a bit more, not enough to send him over the edge but far enough to get his message across, hoping this will induce the man to speak.

It doesn’t.

The target glances over his shoulder and looks down at the street. Iwaizumi can guess what he sees: cars rushing by in streams of light, people crushing through each other on the crowded sidewalks, the small patch of concrete that can very easily become his death sentence if Iwaizumi lets him go. Surprisingly, however, this doesn’t fill the man with fear. Instead, a sort of grim determination settles over his features and he takes another step back, glass crunching under his shoes, until his heels rest at the very edge of the floor.

He turns back to Iwaizumi and tilts his head. There’s an expression on his face that sends shivers down Iwaizumi’s spine, because he knows that expression. He’s seen it countless times, watched it cross the faces of his fellow agents before they made the final sacrifice. It’s the look of a man prepared and willing to die.

His target throws his weight back before Iwaizumi can pull him from the edge, and he drops. Iwaizumi tightens his grip around the man’s collar, determined not to lose him before getting his information, but the sudden on his arm is too much for him and his injured shoulder. His hand falters, and it’s just enough to let his target slip from his fingers and fall to his death on the street below.

Iwaizumi stares at the gruesome scene for a moment, then pulls back and sits on the floor, panting.

It’s another failure for Iwaizumi. Another mark to add to his already ruined record. He hates to think what Kuroo will say once he hears of this, knowing that target was their last lead on the missing hard drive.

The target’s rifle and case are still sitting on the ground where Iwaizumi had shoved them, and he slides across the floor in order to examine them, hoping beyond all hope that there’s some sort of clue inside the rifle case that might take Iwaizumi to his target’s employer. Or at least allow him to trace his target’s string of employment all the way back to that failed mission in Istanbul.

Iwaizumi’s in luck. When he opens the case, he finds it empty of everything except a small, golden poker chip. There are Chinese symbols written down the middle of it, and though Iwaizumi isn’t able to translate them, he knows someone who can.

He pockets the poker chip and stands, catching sight of a woman in the apartment across the way who’s staring right at him, as if she knows someone’s there. Iwaizumi takes note of her face; sharp, elegant, framed by sleek, short-cut hair. Then he turns and walks from the room with a new determination in his step.

It’s time to call in his Quartermaster.

  


 

* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi glances to his left, checking the alarm clock on the bedside table as he runs a towel over his hair and grabs his shaving kit. It’s late, the perfect hour for when all the sinners come out to enjoy the lights that act as stars and empty their wallets for the slightest bit of entertainment. For a high that feels like it could last for a lifetime, bottled into a few hours spent with diamond and crystal, liquor and lipstick.

Iwaizumi would be a downright liar if he denied alcohol being his vice. He admits it. He also knows he has enough self restraint to peel away from the thing that poisons him the most. Maybe. Sure, the heavy liquor put him to bed during nights—when his mind raced everything into a blur, and anxiety took control of his lungs and amplified the agony in his shoulder—but it did no favors for him in anything else.

And now that he’s back in the comfort of doing what he does best, he doesn’t need it anymore.

He has it all back now. The gun, the money, the intel, the suit, Oikawa.

Oikawa.

The cheeky Quartermaster that he at first ridiculed for showing up to his first day dressed in some completely ridiculous street fashion, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst all the other suit and ties floating about and gloating like a damned peacock. Iwaizumi remembers their first words being the least bit kind to each other, still fully charged with dry humor and earning enough mutual respect to bite the bullet and get through their mission.

Oikawa became essential to him faster than Iwaizumi thought he would. He could throw shade into Iwaizumi’s ear and draw out prototypes for new technology at the same time, leaving a little room in between for bathroom breaks. But Iwaizumi knew better. Oikawa pushed himself until he dropped. He would go days without sleep, without food, swearing up and down that he was on the borderline of an epiphany and he just needed a bit more time.

Iwaizumi starts to lather his jaw, remembering when he knocked Oikawa’s lights out the first time he saw him in such shitty condition, and then put him on bed rest until he could walk without wobbly knees. From that day forward, Iwaizumi swore to keep Oikawa as his Quartermaster, if Oikawa would take better care of himself.

Not much time has passed since they started working together, but a hell of a lot has definitely happened.

A knock on the door throws Iwaizumi out of his thoughts. He takes a look at his appearance. Nothing but a white bath towel and lather covering half of his face. Nice. He trods over to answer the door, glaring at the person on the other side.

Speak of the devil.

The first thing he does upon seeing Iwaizumi is snort, bringing a hand to cover his mouth. “Did I come at a bad time?”

“You _always_ come at a bad time.” Iwaizumi steps away from the door and lets him in. He hears Oikawa follow him as he retreats back to the mirror to finish what he started. “How was your flight?”

“Turbulence, nothing major.” Oikawa sets his bag onto the bed with a gentle toss and spins back around to take a look at Iwaizumi, watching him coat the rest of his face.

“Well I hope you’re not wearing _that_ tonight,” Iwaizumi looks at him through the reflection, seeing Oikawa dressed in a button down and cardigan, pants that hover around his ankles. His glasses are a nice touch, those don’t have to go.

Iwaizumi pauses and sets down the lather brush. Oikawa actually looks… _good_ , disheveled like he just rolled out of a lab after weeks of staring at data. His hair tousled atop his head, spiraling in different directions—organized chaos, just like the rest of him.

Oikawa pulls his specs off and sets them on the bedside, watching Iwaizumi rinse his hands off. “ _Rude,”_ he mutters, “I look good in anything I wear, thank you.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t disagree.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa steps away from the bed, tossing his cardigan to the side, “things aren’t looking good back home. M is under a lot of pressure. They’ve got me under the gun, too. It wasn’t easy to get over here.”

“Tch, you? Oikawa Tooru? Who can do _anything?_ ”

Oikawa huffs in annoyance, watching Iwaizumi continue to lather. “I’m serious, y’know. Whoever was trying to get their hands on that list, they got what they wanted.” Oikawa looks around at the decor of the hotel room. Totally not either of their tastes, but still luxurious enough to fit the price tag.

“Five names each week.”

Iwaizumi peeks at him from the mirror as he finishes lathering. Five names of agents part of MI6 distributed worldwide each week. With a death toll hanging over each of their heads.

“Whoever is behind this, they’re treating it like a game.”

Iwaizumi remains quiet and unveils his razor blade. Classic, nothing like the Schick and Gillette high-tech ones, just a single, sharp blade, the kind that needs steady hands and patience.

Even he knew enough to call this a _game_. The questions now were: Who was playing? And why?

Oikawa pulls his lower lip between his teeth. “Cutthroat razor. Kind of old fashioned,” he remarks, jutting his chin towards Iwaizumi’s razor blade.

“I like to be traditional sometimes,” Iwaizumi shrugs, and when he sees Oikawa staring at him with a twinkle in his eye from behind, he lowers the razor from his chin, arching a brow when he sees Oikawa twist his fingers along the buttons of his shirt and walk towards him.

“Sometimes the old ways are the best,” Oikawa murmurs, smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Iwaizumi extends the clean razor out to him, quiet, stone faced and watching Oikawa press his tongue to the roof of his mouth as he curls his fingers around the handle. “Trusting me with your life?”

Oikawa takes that as a yes when Iwaizumi walks out to the small veranda and drops into a chair. He follows, keeping the blade handle tucked into his palm as he kneels slow before Iwaizumi, hands flat on towel sheathed thighs as he sets himself upright.

Iwaizumi cocks a brow upward as Oikawa closes the proximity gap without any hesitation. Not that he minds, really. But the confident—borderline cocky—gleam in Oikawa’s eyes as he leans towards Iwaizumi makes him wonder if he were planning to get himself to this position.

“I brought some new comms for us to use, so please take care of this one, hmm?” Oikawa asks, flipping open the razor and tilting Iwaizumi’s head to the side. Iwaizumi smirks, closing his eyes as the blade presses flush against his skin, cool underneath Oikawa’s warm fingertips, steady hands as it glides across his jaw.

“So, how did you get here, Oikawa?”

“What do you mean?” Oikawa asks, his free hand traveling across Iwaizumi’s collarbone, the razor slowly removing lather from another part on his cheek.

“You said it yourself, MI6 is in bad condition. And if you’re one of the best we have, M would want you close by.”

Oikawa doesn’t reply as he curves the blade across Iwaizumi’s cheek again. “What, did you agree to spy for him?”

“No,” Oikawa shakes his head.

“No? Sawamura, then,” he watches Oikawa’s lips mash into a thin line. Nail on the head.

“He’s… not a bad guy you know. He has MI6 in his best interests.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Iwaizumi’s eyes roll open and tilt from looking out off the veranda to the bit of skin peering out from Oikawa’s shirt.

“He _does_. He’s just not in favor of M’s...special treatment,” he words it carefully, eyes flickering up from Iwaizumi’s jawline to meet his gaze. Iwaizumi stares into them, warm chestnut flickering against the candlelight around them, those eyes that become lighter when he’s happy, darker when he’s down, and for the first time, Iwaizumi has a moment long enough to look into them and soak in the gold flecks in his irises. He draws his tongue across his bottom lip and watches Oikawa’s mouth curve upward as he shaves another spot on his jaw.

“You think they have a right to be concerned with us?” Iwaizumi asks quietly, the question hanging in the air with a lot more meaning than it sounds.

“Hard to say. We’re pretty unpredictable,” Oikawa’s voice lowers even more in both tone and volume. “Risky. The type that push the envelope. You know, _troublemakers._ ”

Iwaizumi can feel Oikawa’s fingers curl around the back of his neck, and somehow his own fingers made their way to his button down, and he’s not exactly sure where this could be headed with them being _unpredictable_.

But he does know it’s dangerous. There’s a part of him that wants to tear those buttons off so hard they fly into several corners of the veranda, just so he can run the pads of his fingers across the expanse of Oikawa’s skin. There’s a part of him that wants to bend Oikawa forward against a headboard and draw out everything he wouldn’t say over a headset, pouring it into a pillow. There’s a part of him that wants drag their lips together between a smoke mixed with liquor over a crystal glass until both of them are too inebriated to do anything else but get lost in the other.

It’s always been there, not quite dormant but not quite bursting, the fire he feels for Oikawa. The way his mouth curves when he smirks, tilting up harder to the left when he’s smug, the way his nose wrinkles when he’s compassionate. The way he sounds in Iwaizumi’s ear, and how he’s gotten so used to it he can tell what Oikawa is doing, thinking, feeling without having to actually see him.

Their lips are close enough that all Iwaizumi has to do is lean forward. Not even that, all he has to do is tilt his head to the right, unfasten that button beneath his fingers, and Oikawa is his.

“Troublemakers, is that what Sawamura thinks of us?”

“Well… we did destroy half of Istanbul over that hard drive.”

Iwaizumi chuckles. “I think you like getting into trouble, Oikawa.”

“Hm,” Oikawa tilts back when Iwaizumi tilts his head far enough to consider their proximity a kiss, and tilts his head towards the ceiling.

“Sit still. This part gets tricky,” he orders. Iwaizumi pulls his fingers away from Oikawa’s shirt and relaxes, tilting his head up and feeling the razor glide across neck to his chin, one fell swoop removing the last big chunk of lather.

“There,” Oikawa whispers, “now you look the part.”

“Classy?”

“Dangerous,” Oikawa peeks at Iwaizumi through a thick set of lashes and lips pulled tight around a smile that threatens to burst open. He reaches up with a towel to wipe off the excess and leans forward far enough to press their foreheads together, sharing air but not quite close enough to kiss.

They both know what the stakes are if they cross that territory.

“Any spots left?” Iwaizumi asks in a soft voice, and he feels Oikawa’s fingers glide across his lips and his chin, to his neck, running blunt nails down to his chest and even further south, before they stop over the edge of his towel.

“All clean,” he answers. “Hajime,” he sighs, the word breathless and sounding like both a demand, a confession, a plea all wrapped in one.

“Hm, Tooru?” His smile is soft against Oikawa’s cheek, just barely any room for air between skin.

“You should trust me with your life more often, I’m pretty good at taking care of you.”

Iwaizumi shakes with silent mirth before he leans back, enough for Oikawa to see him. “Careful what you wish for,” he draws his thumb across Oikawa’s knuckle bed, gaze meeting gaze again for what feels like the millionth time since he arrived.

Iwaizumi used to wonder if Oikawa felt the same way about him, when they constantly flirted through comm sets or over cups of coffee in Oikawa’s favorite cafe. Now, he doesn’t have to think. He can read Oikawa enough to make out the little unspoken details, the nuances of his mood swings, his thoughts.

Oikawa was right.

Iwaizumi takes a deep breath, inhaling Oikawa’s scent of lavender and starlight before his eyes glance up to the clock.

Time to get ready.

“Let’s go be troublemakers, hm?”

  


* * *

 

 

“Maybe I should go into the field more often, 004. I mean have you looked at me?”

Iwaizumi holds the urge to eye roll as he enters through the doors of the lower level casino. He can’t see Oikawa right now, but he got an eyeful of him before they parted, and he’s not wrong.

Oikawa spruced up in a suit is almost irresistible.

“Try not to flirt with the waiters too much,” Iwaizumi comments. He looks up from checking over the banister to see Oikawa walking towards him, a hand shoved into his pocket, smile confident on his face, contacts replacing his normally wonky looking glasses.

Iwaizumi sends him a meaningful glance before he walks past him as though he’s just another handsome stranger lingering around the room like himself. He doesn’t miss Oikawa’s scent wafting past him, or the light touch of fingers against his own as Oikawa makes his way around the corner and disappears into the crowd.

He descends the staircase, stopping before the cash-in window to his left, where he sees almost too much security surrounding three women behind a counter in a room full of money and chips. If it wasn’t obvious that something bigger than just the average night at a casino was going on, it is now.

“Don’t linger around that cash-in too much, the muscle over there is all on edge,” Oikawa mutters in his ear.

“Well that makes things interesting, doesn’t it?” Iwaizumi casually replies. He stops before the cash-in and watches the woman behind the counter tuck her hair behind her ear, batting eyelashes at him. She’s not doing it because she’s really interested, but Iwaizumi will give her credit for doing her job well.

The bodyguards to the right of them look his way. Any normal attendee wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but now he knows this is the right place to be to hand over his prize from the fight with that hitman.

He pulls the coin from his breast pocket and slides it towards the woman, watching her eyes shift from alluring to intimidated.

“Just this,” Iwaizumi says calmly.

“Yes, it’ll just be a moment.” She takes the coin and disappears behind the counter.

After a few minutes, Iwaizumi watches two men walk towards him with a rather large briefcase, all sleek and silver. Iwaizumi keeps still, pressing his tongue hard against the back of his teeth when they lift the lid to reveal the hitman’s payment, all neatly packed inside.

Well, his payment now.

Iwaizumi shuts the lid and seals the case, pulling the handle between his fingers and thanking the two men quietly. He turns away from them to separate himself from the cash-in, but before he can get himself anywhere for any type of reconnaissance, his eyes land on a familiar face.

She stands just across the way from him, all sleek in a slim fitted dress and short, sandy blonde hair that cuts hard just below a sharp jawline. Iwaizumi wouldn’t forget that face. Beautiful, even if he’s only seen her from a distance.

That, and she watched him kill a man.

Iwaizumi waits for her, watching her make her way towards him, her eyes shifting from one side of the room to the other. Not that he hadn’t before, but he keeps his guard up. Something about her demeanor tells him tonight isn’t going to go as easily as he’d hoped.

“I was wondering who’d be turning that poker chip in,” she says as she walks up. Her eyes slide down his form, then back up to his face, and she gives him an alluring smile. “Now you can buy me a drink.”

“I believe it’s common courtesy to introduce oneself before making a move.”

Her eyes sparkle, and she holds out a delicate hand. “Reiko.”

“Iwaizumi.”

He takes her hand and kisses the air above it before placing it in the crook of his arm. He leads her away from the cash-in, towards the bar at the other end of the casino.

“Oh? Well isn’t she pretty?” Oikawa is in his ear again, comment snide. Iwaizumi can practically hear him screwing up his nose over a martini somewhere in the casino, hiding in plain sight and watching him walk Reiko towards the bar.

He knows Iwaizumi can’t answer him, and that’s all the more reason he’s probably going to fuck with him tonight.

“One more inch in those heels and she’s taller than you.”

Iwaizumi clenches his hand around the briefcase. Of course Oikawa would go for the height topic. He doesn’t make an effort to look too hard for where he might be sitting, but when he threatens to drop the comm into a glass of water, he hears Oikawa mumble “mercy” over the line.

Iwaizumi sits Reiko down at the bar, in a section void of almost any other person so they won’t be overheard. He has a feeling their words will hold much more than simple flirting, and he’s not eager to let anyone else in on their conversation. Taking a seat beside her, he flags down the bartender for Reiko to order her drink, and then he orders a whiskey for himself, both out of courtesy and a need for some sort of mental fortification.

Reiko takes a slow sip of her martini, and then turns to Iwaizumi once the bartender has left to comment, “I’m assuming that the hitman I hired is lying dead somewhere?” Iwaizumi offers a short nod. She sighs. “It’s a shame. I liked him.”

“She’s got pretty shitty taste in men,” Oikawa mumbles. Iwaizumi can tell he’s talking behind his hand, and he wishes Oikawa were closer so he could kick him into silence. “I mean, that hitman was nothing close to a catch.”

Iwaizumi tilts his body against the bar counter and looks at Reiko, amusement riddled across his face. “Clearly not that much if you’re asking his killer to buy you a drink.”

“If you think she’ll fall for that—” Oikawa is cut short, and now Iwaizumi knows he can see them, because when Reiko’s lips slide into a slow smile, he can hear Oikawa grumbling to himself. “She really does have shit taste in men.”

“You do like me,” Iwaizumi says it, and Reiko smiles so much she even laughs at that one.

“Ah, 004, who were you talking to just now?” Oikawa asks. Iwaizumi just smirks over the rim of his glass, eyes not leaving Reiko’s, but he knows Oikawa is watching him right now. That last bit will shut him up for a good while, leaving him to ponder whether or not he was addressing Oikawa.

“If it’s alright,” Iwaizumi then ventures, “Can I ask why you needed a hitman in the first place?”

A mask immediately drops over her expression. It’s only the slightest of changes, unnoticeable to any who aren’t looking for it, but to Iwaizumi it’s obvious. She’s distancing herself from the topic. Growing nervous. Growing wary.

“My employer needed to take out a rival. Using a hitman seemed the simplest way,” she answers, words careful.

Iwaizumi watches her set her martini on the counter and zeroes in on the slight trembling of her hand. Her eyes are averted, smile tight, and she seems to be shifting her gaze between certain points around the room. Possibly to the bodyguards that have been trailing her all night.

So all of that extra muscle floating about the casino wasn’t just for the cash exchange. It makes more sense, but now Iwaizumi is wondering just who this person could be, to have this much security around one woman.

Iwaizumi doesn’t take his eyes from her— no need to alert her guards to his awareness— but leans forward to lowly murmur, “I’d like to meet this employer of yours.”

She tenses, limbs growing still. All except her hands, which only begin to shake more at his words. She places them in her lap in an attempt to hide her growing fear.

But fear of what? Iwaizumi wonders. Fear of whom?

“You should be careful what you wish for,” Reiko answers. Her voice is still steady, strong and smooth, completely opposite of what her eyes show. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I know when someone is afraid and pretending not to be.”

“What do you know of fear?”

“More than you would believe.”

She laughs, the sound forced. “Thank you for the drink,” she says as she tries to stand, right before Iwaizumi catches her arm and holds her to her seat.

The movement catches her off guard, as Iwaizumi had wanted. She had put up a good front until this point, but it’s crumbling now, and she’s in full retreat. Iwaizumi can’t allow that to happen. Not before he secures some sort of meeting with this boss of hers at the very least.

“Whatever his hold over you is, I can break it. If you’ll let me,” he looks at her, not using any kind of force now, but sympathy. He moves her back into her seat, fingertips brushing gently across the curve of her elbow, down to her wrist. Her quivering beneath his hand is indicative enough that she’s used to being handled forcefully, and absolutely terrified of it.

She responds by placing her hand into his. It’s for show, so no one sees that she’s internally panicking. She uses the warmth along his palm to settle her nerves. “They’re going to kill you,” she whispers, “if you manage to survive, my yacht leaves tonight.”

Iwaizumi sends her a small smile. For show, for reassurance, and stands up, keeping their hands together and letting her lead him out.

“You’re leaving with her,” Oikawa doesn’t phrase it like a question, because it isn’t one. And he doesn’t sound too happy about it.

“I am,” Iwaizumi murmurs quietly in return.

 _It’s for the job_ , Iwaizumi has it written in his eyes when he catches Oikawa sitting at a table, fingertip swirling around the rim of his glass. Iwaizumi meets his eyes for a moment to tell him that, but he doesn’t need to. Oikawa just casually looks away and back over the veranda.

“If you ditch that comm, 004, I will kill you myself,” Oikawa warns dangerously when Iwaizumi reaches up to touch the piece inside his ear.

Iwaizumi chortles, and leaves it in place, brushing past Oikawa. He doesn’t touch him, not when a beautiful woman is in one hand and a briefcase full of money is in the other. But gliding past his shoulder is a small something at least.

Iwaizumi doesn’t get too far when Reiko pulls her hand from his and steps beyond a wall of bodyguards, blocking Iwaizumi from going after her.

“I think you need to turn around,” one of them says, puffing his chest out, clearly bigger than Iwaizumi all around and using that as a fear tactic.

“Oh? I don’t think I was going the wrong way,” Iwaizumi looks back over his shoulder, before he jams the side of the briefcase into the man’s face and sends him stumbling, whipping his wrist around to crack his knuckles against the nose of the second bodyguard.

With those two stunned, he thinks to make a break for it, at least until he gets outside to avoid making a mess, but his plan is foiled with a third, bigger guard heaves the both of them through the side of the bridge and down into the pit underneath them.

Iwaizumi lands with a hard thud on his side, bouncing away from his gun. He claws quickly into the gravel and pulls himself to his feet. His shoulder aches a bit from the landing but he rolls it out, watching the henchman scramble around to get to his feet as well.

Iwaizumi hears it, like a chill along his spine and eerie, dark in contrast to the warmth of the casino floor above them. The hiss of a threat lingering behind him, around them, and he goes still, quieting his breath and looking for the fastest way out.

The henchman, now panicking that not two, but three komodo dragons are staring at him with an intent to kill, picks Iwaizumi’s gun up from the dirt and points it at him.

Iwaizumi smirks when the man tries to squeeze the trigger, and nothing budges. Iwaizumi can see the little red light beneath the trigger, denying the unrecognized handprint and locking the safety.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, watching the henchman’s eyes widen as danger creeps up behind him and locks its jaw around his ankles, slamming him into the dirt and dragging him back into the shadows.

Iwaizumi doesn’t think to look back at the remaining reptiles. He snags his gun off of the ground and heads to climb out from the pit. He doesn’t manage to get much more than an arm onto the solid floorboards of the bridge before a gun is pointed at his head. One of the henchmen is still remaining, glaring at him as he curls his finger around the trigger.

Iwaizumi doesn’t have too many options here, and with his bum shoulder refusing to let him move at the speed he’s used to, he thinks he may just have to drop back into the pit of dragons and find another way out.

Until the sound of a full case of money wailing across the enemy’s head rings in his ears. Iwaizumi looks up, seeing Oikawa holding the briefcase between his fingers, a hand extended to help him off of the ledge.

“I think you broke his skull open,” Iwaizumi looks down at the unconscious—probably dying—henchman. A blow sounding like that couldn’t have been gentle. Iwaizumi may have underestimated just how strong Oikawa actually is.

“I think I’ll keep this. For saving your life.” Oikawa pats the side of the metal. “My services aren’t cheap.”

“I’m glad I’m not footing the bill then. Keep it, and don’t blow it all at once. I did work hard for it.”

Oikawa winks at him as he tucks the briefcase to his side. “Don’t you have a job to do, 004?”

Iwaizumi turns away from him and heads to catch up to Reiko’s yacht before it departs. He was going to thank Oikawa, but that would make his ego swell, and he would probably make some remark about Iwaizumi having gone soft.

Besides, he has a feeling Oikawa doesn’t want to hear apologies right now. Not when he’s about to sail off with some mysterious beauty on a fancy boat.

He sort of wishes he could have let Oikawa hear the words verbally.

“ _It’s for the job.”_

Iwaizumi wonders now if Oikawa will still believe him.

He shoves the small bit of doubt to the back of his mind as he exits the casino and heads for the harbor.

  


* * *

 

 

“You’re an interesting man,” Reiko tosses from over her shoulder. She heard Iwaizumi come in, although he didn’t try to make some silent, sneaky entrance.

“Humor me,” Iwaizumi’s eyes follow her as she walks a drink over to him, placing it in his palm.

Truly, she’s gorgeous. Features soft in all the right places, sharp in all the others. She looks healthy, when she isn’t shivering, clouded with thoughts of whatever, whoever has a hold on her. Anyone could take one look at her and think that she has it all.

This isn’t luxury.

It’s imprisonment.

Iwaizumi hesitates to bring the glass to his lips, not for any other reason than the simple fact that he isn’t going to just sit around and play cards with her when this yacht takes off.

He’s had his fair share of pleasure with many people over the years of doing his job. But it’s harder to surrender to the purely visceral when something, _someone_ important lingers in the back of your mind. Or in his case, in his ear.

“Most people, even the best, would run from a danger like this. And here you are, running straight towards it. I can’t decide if it’s courage, or just stupidity,” she sips from her glass, and it’s apparent her nerves are still eating at her from the way she takes much more than just enough liquor to coat her tongue.

“What part don’t you believe? The part where I kill him? Or save you?”

“Neither.”

Iwaizumi laughs. She did her part in humoring him, but she’s not done yet. Reiko downs the last of what’s in her glass before she plants it on the table side, closing the gap between them and making no secret about what she wants next.

Right, Iwaizumi is just doing his job.

“Well, I take her silence as being horny,” Oikawa blurts in his ear, shattering whatever sort of moment could have been growing.

Iwaizumi ignores him. Instead he sets his glass down, still full, and ghosts hands around her waist, swallowing every bit of him that says _no_ and replacing it with _I have to_. He meets her gaze as she smiles at him. She trusts him. Not that she should, but in a position like this, she’s out of options.

 _Pretty_ , Iwaizumi thinks, fixated on her eyes while her hands pull apart his jacket. They are brown, warm, and they remind him of Oikawa’s. Less shaped like almonds, a little rounder and not as expressive. Iwaizumi wonders how disgusting it would be if he started fantasizing about Oikawa right now. He makes a mental note not to look at her eyes so much.

It’s about time he stops standing there, letting her do all the work, so he reaches forward and unhooks the fastener at the top of her dress. It feels robotic, and if he doesn’t do _something_ , he’ll be caught in the headlights with her knowing he has zero interest.

“So this… is what? One last thrill?”

“Something like that,” she peeks up at him.

Iwaizumi can hear Oikawa in his ear, making some kind of gagging noise. So in spite, he kisses her. Hard. Yanking the zipper of her dress down with enough urgency to say he wants this, but gentle enough to remind her that he’s going to take care of her tonight.

“I bet you suck in bed,” Oikawa spits.

Iwaizumi can imagine him pouting in front of his computer desk, and he slips, smiling against Reiko’s mouth. It does a favor for him, flipping a switch in her and suddenly she’s more aggressive, pulling his tie loose from his neck and tossing it to some obscure corner of the room.

“I bet you she’ll leave thinking ‘ _This was the worst sex I’ve ever had_.’”

If only Iwaizumi could respond, he’d shut Oikawa up with just a few words. Maybe an invitation, if he was feeling nice.

Iwaizumi lets the dress slip from Reiko’s skin and he runs his fingers along her sides, thumbs stopping at hipbones and drawing her flush against him. He bites down against her lip and draws out a gasp, trying not to enjoy it too much because he should feel guilty, using her to get a rise out of Oikawa.

“Oh _please_ ,” Oikawa scoffs. “You can’t even go through with it you don’t have—”

“Wait, right here,” Reiko breathes, and vanishes across the room. She disappears around the corner into what’s probably the bathroom.

Iwaizumi takes that chance to respond to Oikawa. “Are you going to nag me all night?”

“That’s my job,” Oikawa quips.

“And _this_ is mine.”

“You don’t even have a _reason_ to sleep with her.”

“Oh… is that jealousy?” Iwaizumi smirks, “If you wanted to take her place, all you had to do was ask.”

“You _wish_ you could get your hands on this,” Oikawa is probably grinning now.

“I can think about that later,” Iwaizumi mutters, and goes silent when Reiko emerges out of the bathroom, easily sliding herself back into his arms like she’d never left.

  


* * *

 

 

Oikawa sits on the other side, staring at computer monitors, one of which is reading Iwaizumi’s vitals. He’s back at his hotel room now. Well, it’s Iwaizumi’s hotel room, he just took over when that asshole decided to jump on a yacht for the night.

Oikawa could be pissed off that Iwaizumi isn’t going to return to the hotel and help him work, but he isn’t. Iwaizumi hardly ever comes back. It’s where he’s going that bothers Oikawa.

He’ll admit he’s been a little wary of letting Iwaizumi out of his sight ever since he saw him go through the evaluation, but it’s more than that. Listening to Iwaizumi drag lewd noises out of some Mary Sue is by far the most irritating thing he’s had to endure yet.

“ _If you wanted to take her place, all you had to do was ask.”_

That’s laughable. If Oikawa was the least bit honest with himself, he would scream from a rooftop that he wanted to be in her place. Of course he is jealous, especially when he has to hear a live feed about what he doesn’t get to have.

Sure, he’s free to take off the headset at any time, but the usually sadistic Quartermaster turns into something of a masochist for Iwaizumi. He’s not sure why, but he can’t exactly help it either.

“Are you always this gentle?”

Oikawa stiffens at the woman’s question, eyes wide at a computer monitor that shows him the map of Macau, with Iwaizumi as a little red dot somewhere in the harbor.

“Should I not be?” Iwaizumi replies, a low, tender croon in Oikawa’s ear. But the words Iwaizumi speaks aren’t for him. Never for him.

Oikawa’s eyes switch to the vitals, watching them climb from steady to increasingly erratic.

Alright, he confesses. It should be him saying cheesy shit like this, half drunk on expensive liquor and watching Iwaizumi rip open a condom between his teeth. It should be him that forgets how to breathe as Iwaizumi turns his world upside down.

And it’s becoming painful to adjust to the simple truth that he’ll never get to.

Some people might listen to this live feed of audio-only sex and get a hard on. Oikawa can’t help but feel his heart sink instead.

“Just doing your job, huh?” he murmurs. Whether or not Iwaizumi heard it doesn’t matter to him. But he can’t take another second of watching vitals on the monitor and listening to Iwaizumi be an agent. Whatever that means.

Oikawa rips the headset from his ears and slams it down to the desk, yanking his jacket off of the chair and double checking for his hotel key. He sure as hell isn’t going to sit and wallow about what can never be.

  


* * *

 

 

It’s that time of night where one could say late or early and they would mean the same thing. Iwaizumi slides out of bed, pulling his arm away from Reiko and moving over to the window.

Back when he was off duty, he might have poured himself a glass of whiskey and watched the sunrise, while his thoughts muddled around until he chose one and focused on it.

He doesn’t need the liquor, and he doesn’t need to choose.

He heard it last night, loud and clear as he lost himself in raw pleasure. Something bitter left Oikawa’s lips before a loud slam jolted into his eardrum.

Iwaizumi isn’t too sure what Oikawa had said, but he could have sworn he heard something about “just doing his job,” and while he didn’t think about it too much while his hips were pressed between Reiko’s, after he came down from his high, he couldn’t get it off his mind.

He still can’t, as he watches the light from the sun break across the horizon.

Oikawa wouldn’t understand something like this even if Iwaizumi tried to explain it to him. Agents do what they have to for the job. Now he thinks he may have been foolish to assume Oikawa understood the weight of those words.

Why hadn’t Oikawa just turned off the mic before?

Stupid question. Iwaizumi would have probably done the same as him, tortured himself into enduring as much as he could because it’s probably the closest he can get to the real thing.

He wants to. With every fiber in his body he wants to. But not like this, hanging between living in fear and being numb to it.

He doesn’t want to just fuck Oikawa, no. Iwaizumi wants to love him until he doesn’t need oxygen, until he forgets everything else in this world but pleasure drawn straight from his core.

It’s not just the sex he wants either (but God does he want it). He wants to hear Oikawa laugh, unguarded, stress free. He wants to watch him do what he loves, bouncing about his lab of chaos and bursting with innovation.

Iwaizumi really ponders it as he digs his fingers into a stress knot in his shoulder blade. If he could have Oikawa, would he give all of this up?

It scares him that almost everything in his being says he would do it in a heartbeat.

Iwaizumi looks around for his earpiece, knowing he set it somewhere after Oikawa left. He’s probably at his desk right now, returned to work, having swallowed all feelings negative for the sake of _work_.

It’s always for work.

“Q,” he mumbles, voice still thick with sleep. “You there?”

There’s a stretch of silence. Iwaizumi guesses Oikawa probably isn’t going to pick up the headset for a good while longer. Or he might have just gone out to clear his head.

“Aren’t I always?” Oikawa grumbles, a moment later. He sounds tired. He probably didn’t sleep, Iwaizumi thinks, hearing the fatigue in his voice. He’s quiet. They both are, the way that two lovers would sound after a fight.

Iwaizumi isn’t sure what to say. He opens and closes his mouth several times, at a complete loss for anything that would break the tension. Nothing could serve as an apology right now. He took the game too far, he knows that.

“Q, I—”

“I’m surprised you’re awake,” Oikawa cuts him off. “Figured you’d be snuggling with your new buddy.”

Even if Iwaizumi tried to be cute right now, it wouldn’t work. His silence is enough to let Oikawa know he’s not being obstinate about it.

“Well...it’s not my fault you can’t stop thinking about me,,” Oikawa puffs.

“Mm, how’d you know?” Iwaizumi smiles, looking down at the flat of his stomach. He absentmindedly draws his fingers across the elastic band on his hip.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“What?”

“I’m everything you need.”

Iwaizumi’s jaw drops open, heart slamming against his chest. The words take him by surprise, and he’s a little embarrassed, knowing Oikawa can see his vital signs spiraling into a frenzy right about now.

He rolls his eyes shut and presses his forehead against the glass. It’d be nice, if at some point in the future, Oikawa could be there with him instead of on the other end of a communicator.

“Y’know Oikawa,” he sighs, “you might be right about that.”

  


* * *

 

 

The yacht docks just an hour and a half later at a small island that looks like it’s been abandoned for years. Buildings are crumbling all along the coast, from one side of the island all the way to the pier at the other end, where Iwaizumi disembarks with Reiko. He looks around, wondering if the entire city is in the same, worn-down condition, and wondering what type of man would opt to live in such a place.

Reiko is silent, and she keeps a vice-like grip on Iwaizumi’s hand as they step off the yacht. But glancing around the area, he isn’t surprised. This island looks like hell on earth. He wouldn’t be eager to return here either.

Several armed figures appear at the end of the dock, guns held at the ready, like Iwaizumi might be some sort of threat. He is, but not at the moment. Not until he has assurance that this man is the one behind the attacks on MI6 and is in position to place him into custody.

Iwaizumi faces them calmly, non-threateningly, and allows the men to surround both him and Reiko and escort them from the docks into the heart of the island.

The streets are empty, abandoned. Possessions are littered all over, like they had been abandoned in a mad scramble to leave by the island’s former inhabitants. Iwaizumi tries not to think of what might have become of them, or what might become of him if he doesn’t play his cards right.

At some point, the group splits in two, with half of the guards pulling Reiko from his side and into one of the buildings while the other half shepherd him further down the street towards what looks to be the island’s former government center. Reiko watches him leave in resignation and mutters a quick, “I’m sorry,” before she disappears from his sight.

Iwaizumi feels a tug of apprehension in the pits of his stomach.

The separation is a deliberate one, and it speaks more to Iwaizumi than any other aspect of his situation. His arrival was clearly expected, though whether this is because the yacht’s captain informed his boss or because Iwaizumi’s been brought here deliberately, he has yet to figure out. .

Iwaizumi is brought into a large room filled with machinery and wires, a computer system so intricate it would leave Oikawa practically drooling with desire. It looks almost like a miniature version of MI6, scaled down in size to a single room and four small desks, but still just as complex.

There’s a single chair at the end of the room, between the four desks. Iwaizumi is dragged there and forced into the seat, hands tied neatly behind his back. Then he’s left alone, with only his headset to connect him to the normal, human world.

Frowning, he tests the restraints on his hands, shifting and pulling and feeling the tight rope cut deep into his wrists. The knots are tight, secure, and there’s no wiggle room for Iwaizumi to slip a hand free, no matter how hard he tries.

He sighs loudly, and is answered with Oikawa’s soft hum.

“Doesn’t sound too good there, Iwa-chan,” he chirps. Behind the lighthearted tone, however, Iwaizumi can hear the note of concern, the unspoken offer of rescue if Iwaizumi really needs it.

“I’ve been through worse.”

This isn’t the first,and probably not the last, time that Iwaizumi’s been strapped to a chair. At least Oikawa can still track his whereabouts this time around, thanks to the little radio stowed carefully in his suit jacket’s pocket. There have been missions where that wasn’t the case, and Iwaizumi still made it out alive. He can do so again this time.

His statement appeases Oikawa, who knows just how true his words are. He can hear the soft clacking of Oikawa’s keyboard, and imagines in his mind’s eye what Oikawa looks like. Hair tousled, bags under his eyes, those glasses of his perched on his small, upturned nose. Their conversation from earlier is still playing through his thoughts, and Iwaizumi wants nothing more than to be there with his Quartermaster, finished with all this mess.

There’s a clatter across the room, the screeching of metal against tile flooring, and then a figure fills the open doorway, grinning at Iwaizumi like they were old friends.

This is the boss, Iwaizumi assumes. He’s nothing like Iwaizumi expected.

The man is athletic, vibrant, with a glowing smile and expressive face. He runs a hand through his wild mess of hair, from the blackened roots all the way to the white tips, making it stand even more erratically than it already was.

“Oho,” he starts, brows raised far higher than is natural, “I knew there was an agent coming, but I wasn’t expecting to get so lucky on my first try.” He pulls up a chair from one of the desks and plops himself down right in front of Iwaizumi. “You are _just_ the man I’ve been wanting to see, Iwaizumi Hajime.”

The use of his full name sends a shock through Iwaizumi. There’s no doubt now that this is the man they’ve been looking for. Only someone with that hard drive, and all its access to MI6 files, could know his identity.

There’s a soft gasp over his headset as Oikawa reaches the same conclusion.

Iwaizumi ignores his Quartermaster’s exclamation and focuses on the man before him. He can’t be much older than Iwaizumi, but there’s something about him, about the crooked smile and lines around his eyes, that speaks centuries of difference.

He tilts his head to the side as he cooly regards the male. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage…”

“Bokuto,” the man supplies. “The previous 004. Before you were granted that distinction.”

Iwaizumi sucks in a sharp breath.

This man— Bokuto— he’s one of theirs. Or _was_ one of theirs. An agent of MI6 gone rogue for some unknown reason.

This makes him dangerous. Especially to Iwaizumi, who is just now realizing he’s Bokuto’s replacement in the agency, and Bokuto apparently holds some sort of grudge against that.

Iwaizumi strives not to let his alarm show in his expression, which is just as well because Oikawa is freaking out enough for the both of them, cursing beneath his breath and causing a ruckus as he no doubt rushes around the room, looking for his phone. “I’m calling in backup, Hajime. Just sit tight,” he tells him, and Iwaizumi’s never been more grateful for Oikawa’s quick perception than he is now.

Bokuto watches him carefully through all this. He’s still wearing that wide grin, but his gaze is watchful, calculating, and it sweeps over the entirety of Iwaizumi’s form before settling on Iwaizumi’s headset, which he then plucks from Iwaizumi’s ears without so much as a warning.

“Is this your Q? The infamous Oikawa Tooru?” he asks. He flips the headset into the air a few times, and then drops it to the floor, crushing it beneath his foot. “I’ve heard all about you two, you know.”

The pieces of his headset lay scattered across the tile floor— his last form of communication completely busted. Iwaizumi tries not to let this perturb him.

“What about us?”

Bokuto doesn’t answer. Not outright.

“What do you know about bird hunting, Hajime?” he asks instead. The change in topic is strange to Iwaizumi, but he goes along with it, doesn’t fight it, and shakes his head.

“Nothing at all.”

“I thought not.” He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms behind his head, relaxed, as if they were sharing a drink in some dive bar instead of facing each other down in an abandoned building. “It’s a fascinating hobby, bird hunting. Beautiful in the most tragic of ways. You have to _understand_ the bird, you see? Know all about its habits. What it likes and dislikes. What it can’t live without.”

He shoots up suddenly, right into Iwaizumi’s personal space, and stares Iwaizumi square in the eye. The proximity is unnerving, with Bokuto’s golden eyes only inches from his own, cutting straight through to his very core. Iwaizumi feels like an animal caught in a predator’s path, only he can’t ran away to safety. He can’t escape from _this._

“Know anything about the tawny owl?” Bokuto murmurs, warm breath against Iwaizumi’s face.

Once more, Iwaizumi shakes his head.

“Now that’s a nasty bird. Highly territorial. Any threat to them and they’ll just come flying in,” his arm swoops right between their faces, forcing Iwaizumi to jerk back or else get hit, “all silent like and attack before you even realize what’s happening.” Bokuto laughs quietly. The sound unsettles Iwaizumi, like nails on a chalkboard. “Nasty, nasty birds. And you can’t just shoot at them, or else they’ll just keep on attacking.”

“So how do you hunt them then?” Iwaizumi questions. Humoring the man.

Bokuto slowly leans back and crosses his arms. Sunlight glints sharply in his bright, golden eyes.

“You go after the mate.”

It’s here that Bokuto’s easy grin twists into something more cruel and predatory. There’s a darkness in his eyes that wasn’t present before, and Iwaizumi gets the feeling that this conversation has much more to do with the reason he’s here than he’d originally assumed.

“Tawny owls mate for life, you see,” Bokuto continues. “They nest together, share their lives, protect their land.”

 _Just like human lovers,_ the words imply. Oikawa’s face flashes through Iwaizumi’s thoughts for a moment before he brushes it away.

He can’t think of Oikawa while Bokuto is scrutinizing him so closely, like he can read every thought that passes through Iwaizumi’s mind.

“Except there’s always that time of year when the female owl is more vulnerable, easy to pick off,” Bokuto continues. “You just have to find their nest, then,” he lifts his arms as if handling a shotgun, and then mimics the kick of a shot.

Iwaizumi feels the kick straight through his gut. He sees an image of Oikawa lying motionless, shotgun wound bleeding over his heart, and knows it’s because Iwaizumi couldn’t protect him. And it rankles him to know that it could be reality one day if Oikawa remains tied up with him. The idea of it haunts him.

Bokuto lowers his arms in the silence. His words are soft and chilling as he finally says, “And then, when the female’s dead, you take out her mourning mate. Because without her, that owl has nothing left to live for.”

“Seems like an unnecessary show of cruelty to me,” Iwaizumi murmurs. The words draw Bokuto’s attention back to him, head tilting as his lips curl into a sardonic smile.

“A little like this, don’t you agree? M’s a master hunter, giving you a mission even with those test results of yours.” At Iwaizumi’s blank stare, he throws a hand over his heart, as if in shock, and pleads, “Oh, tell me that you know. Tell me he didn’t hide them from you.”

Iwaizumi remains silent, eyes narrowing as Bokuto stands from his seat. “What did you score on your marksmanship evaluation?” he asks, walking over to one of the computers in the room. Iwaizumi sighs.

“Seventy percent.”

Bokuto laughs loudly and shakes his head. “Forty-five,” he corrects. His fingers fly across his keyboard, and then suddenly the computer screens are filled with the pages of Iwaizumi’s marksmanship scores, all saying the same thing: failure. “And did the psychologist clear you for duty?”

“Yes. Of course.”

The screens flash, and his marksmanship scores are replaced with the documents of all his other tests. There’s a mark of failure on his medical examination, and one on his physical evaluation, and there are so many notes written on that of his psychological examination that Iwaizumi doesn’t even bother looking for the failure mark. It’s quite obvious what the verdict was.

“Signs of alcohol addiction indicated,” Bokuto reads off for him. “Resistance of authority due to recent events and unresolved childhood trauma. Immediate suspension from field work is advised.” He lets out a slow whistle and looks back up at Iwaizumi. “Eager to get you killed, isn’t he? Sending you out when he knows you aren’t ready.”

“Perhaps,” Iwaizumi clucks his tongue, irritation riddled in his bones. He stores the argument with Kuroo for later, when he isn’t looking for a way to escape danger.

Bokuto walks over to him and cards his fingers through Iwaizumi’s hair. It’s less a move of affection than it is a way manipulate Iwaizumi’s gaze, tilting his head back to meet Bokuto’s eyes. It’s the first time Iwaizumi sees him without a grin. His cold glare sends a shiver straight down Iwaizumi’s spine.

“You still trust in him, don’t you?”

“I trust more in myself.”

They stare at each other for a moment, tension thick with unspoken words. Then Bokuto leans down and unties the rope binding Iwaizumi’s hands together.

“I’d like to show you something,” Bokuto says. He turns and walks towards the door, beckoning for Iwaizumi to follow with his index finger. There’s no way of escape, and no way for him to incapacitate Bokuto just yet, and so Iwaizumi heeds the call.

They walk through the building and out the back door, into a small courtyard filled with rubble and a few of Bokuto’s henchmen. There’s a small table with a bottle of whiskey and a pair of pistols, where Bokuto stands, pouring the liquor into two, crystal shot glasses. Hesitantly, Iwaizumi joins him and takes the glass Bokuto offers. He almost drops it when Bokuto then turns him to face the center of the courtyard.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Bokuto murmurs. Iwaizumi can only nod, words stuck in his throat.

His stomach drops out as he stares at Reiko, whom he notices is tied to the largest piece of rubble in the vicinity. Her beautiful face is all beat up. There are bruises along her cheekbones and a trickle of blood running from a cut on her mouth. And, most sickeningly of all, there are red marks all around her neck where it looks like she’s been strangled.

Guilt slams into him hard.

“Ah, sweet Reiko. Such a lovely distraction. For you and I both, I believe,” Bokuto continues, saluting Iwaizumi with his shot glass. “And so easy to take care of once the interest’s gone.”

He clinks his shot glass against Iwaizumi’s own, a toast of sorts, before throwing back the whiskey with a single gulp. Iwaizumi swallows his down with trouble, all while keeping his eyes locked on Bokuto, who refills his shot glass once more and grins at Iwaizumi.

“Let me offer you some advice, Hajime,” he says as he backs his way across the courtyard towards Reiko. “Love is a debilitating thing. Allow yourself to fall in love, to form that attachment, and you’re just setting yourself up to be hunted. Love becomes your weakness, and your undoing. It’s far better-” he slips his fingers under Reiko’s chin and lifts her head, carefully setting the shot glass on top, “-to give in to simple, unattached distractions, don’t you agree? Less of a mess when things turn sour.”

Bokuto walks back to Iwaizumi’s side and picks up the pair of pistols, pressing one firmly into the palm of Iwaizumi’s hand, not allowing Iwaizumi to refuse. “Let’s see if you can improve that marksmanship score, hm?”

Iwaizumi presses his lips together tightly.

He knows what Bokuto is asking him to do. The shot glass on top of Reiko’s head is a tiny target, and there’s no way Iwaizumi can hit it cleanly away with the shaky aim his bum shoulder produces. But what other choice does he have but to shoot?

Bokuto sweeps out an arm in invitation. There’s the click of a loaded gun from one of the bodyguards behind him, ready to shoot at him if he even tries to refuse Bokuto’s game. Even if he could refuse, Bokuto would shoot Reiko anyways, and Iwaizumi would be left with the blood of one more innocent victim on his hands. Even more so because of the promise he had given her.

He had told her he would help, and so Iwaizumi will. He cocks the gun and aims it, ignoring the pain in his arm the best he can as he tries to get a clear shot on the liquor-filled glass. His arm betrays him, and his heart betrays him, both working together to invariably pull Iwaizumi’s arm away from Reiko’s figure so as not to hurt her.

He just can’t do it. He can’t point a gun at Reiko knowing what his aim is like, and that he’ll most likely end up killing her. Reiko doesn’t deserve that from him. She doesn’t deserve any of this. And the brown eyes that stare back at him remind him so much of Oikawa’s that his heart jumps straight into his throat, choking him, making it near impossible for him to pull the trigger.

When he finally takes the shot, it’s wide, missing Reiko by a good margin. Bokuto clicks his tongue in disappointment.

“I can see now why they failed you,” he comments.

Iwaizumi has no time to respond before Bokuto takes a shot of his own and lands a bullet straight in the middle of Reiko’s beautiful forehead.

She slumps forward almost immediately. The shot glass tumbles from her head onto the ground, whiskey spilling everywhere.

“I win,” Bokuto declares.

Iwaizumi doesn’t respond. He stares at Reiko, hanging limp from the rubble with blood dripping from her forehead onto the dust-covered ground, and feels anger start to stir. The bodyguards behind him are relaxed, he knows, now that he’s played Bokuto’s game. Even Bokuto himself is relaxed, despite the fact that Iwaizumi is still holding a loaded gun.

Perhaps it’s because Bokuto believes he’ll be broken by the news of his evaluation failures and his terrible shot just moments before. Iwaizumi knows better than to let those things get to him. Just as assuredly as he knows Oikawa will come with backup any minute now.

Iwaizumi moves the moment he hears the whirring blades of a helicopter, grabbing the nearest bodyguard to use as a human shield while he shoots down two others. He hurls the one he’s holding into the fourth and shoots clean through both of them with a single shot before twisting around to fire one, quick shot into the fifth and final bodyguard.

He then turns his gun on Bokuto, who slowly backs away with his hands held up in surrender. He laughs, seeming to be in disbelief.

“So what now then? Are you going to take me prisoner? Lead me back to MI6 all on your own?”

Iwaizumi smirks. “Who ever said I was on my own?”

At that moment, the the sound of chopping blades grows exponentially, right before three, black helicopters appear over the courtyard, all three honing in on the tracking device Iwaizumi still wore and the shell-shocked figure of Bokuto not too far away.

  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allie's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/eclecticinkling)  
> Remmi's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/tendousatori)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not proud of the call I made, Hajime,” he answers. “But that’s what being M means. Sometimes you need to sacrifice everything you love to make sure no one else has to.”

“He’s in there?” Kuroo gestures beyond the heavy metal door, eyes shifting from Kindaichi to Iwaizumi and back.

“We’ve held him inside the cell for a few hours now. He seems...comfortable,” Kindaichi mutters quietly.

It only takes one look for Iwaizumi to know that Kindaichi has felt the same thing he had back on that island.

Fear.

Not many people encounter those that are truly unafraid of dying. You can’t explain something like that to someone, you just _feel_ it. A void where their humanity should be.

“Let me see him,” Kuroo demands.

Iwaizumi has half a mind to ask Kuroo if this is all really necessary, but after his chilling conversation with Bokuto—while strapped to a chair—he’s curious to see what Kuroo has to say to an agent that went rogue.

For as cunning and provocative as Kuroo carries himself, he values pride and loyalty. Iwaizumi can’t see him taking too kindly to the return of an agent that’s not only run amok, but is toying with the entire agency.

“Sure,” Kindaichi nods, and unlocks the door, pulling it open to let Kuroo pass.

Sawamura shares a glance with Iwaizumi, looking just about as wary as Kindaichi. That means he knows something about this agent.

Now Iwaizumi is really interested to see what Kuroo has been keeping from him all this time. He reaches for Kindaichi’s shoulder as he walks past him, and sends him a reassuring look. “You can stay out here if you like.”

“004...thank you,” Kindaichi breathes, pressing clipboard to his chest and side stepping the entryway. He exhales heavy with relief; Kindaichi wants to be nowhere near the suffocating pressure of that room.

On the inside, Bokuto sits encased in a glass cell, all sorts of escape-proof with nothing but a small bench. His eyes are wide, beautifully golden and gleaming underneath fluorescent lights. He snaps them from the ceiling to the doorway, and Iwaizumi watches them narrow—completely animalistic—when he sees Kuroo.

“My my, luck has been on my side lately.”

Iwaizumi slides his hands into his pockets and carefully watches between both Bokuto and Kuroo, occasionally looking Sawamura’s way as well.

“Why are you doing this?” Kuroo asks him, flat, words clipped. His jaw is set tight; he’s in no mood to play.

“No, ‘ _hello Koutarou. Been a while’?_ C’mon Tetsu, you mean you didn’t miss me one bit?”

Iwaizumi waits for Kuroo’s sarcastic reply.

“What do you want,” Kuroo deadpans.

Iwaizumi raises a brow. No sarcastic reply means Kuroo really isn’t fond of this guy.

“Hm?” Bokuto tilts his head, jutting his chin out and rapping his fingers against it. “Well, if you could say my name. I miss hearing you say my name, _M_.”

“Fat chance,” Kuroo hisses. He’s losing his patience, much faster than Iwaizumi has ever seen. But he sees something else when Bokuto tilts backwards with mock horror on his face. Kuroo is anxious. His hands balled into fists at his side aren’t just anger. Iwaizumi watches them quiver slightly.

He’s hiding something, Iwaizumi knows that much.

But with the way he looks right now, and this previous 004 in the room having complete control over the momentum, whatever Kuroo is hiding must be hidden with good reason.

“Are you refusing to say it because you’re upset with me? You used to always say it. _Koutarou_. Remember? It was hardly ever _004_. We were past all of that professional bullshit,” Bokuto shoots up from his seat on the bench, smile jagged and razor sharp, eyes bright with a darkness in them that puts the room on edge.

Iwaizumi feels like he should keep his hand close to his gun. Apparently Sawamura does too. Kuroo, however, remains unmoving.

“We had something _more_ than just this foundation you sold your soul to. _Friendship_. Now that…” Bokuto grins, “that’s hard to come by with you, isn’t it? Nobody here knows what that’s like. Not even your _new me_.” Bokuto’s eyes shift to Iwaizumi, and he even has the audacity to wink at him.

“We were never friends,” Kuroo snaps, the lie blatantly obvious but he refuses to acknowledge that Bokuto is getting under his skin.

“Alright. I’ll play along. So then let me ask you this,” Bokuto wiggles his hands against his restraints. They don’t budge, but the movement looks more calculated than just absent minded shifting around. “Do you _have_ friends?”

There is a stretch of silence, and not because Kuroo isn’t playing along.

“Right, of course not. Work before anything else, right? Kuroo Tetsurou, all about the greater good!” Bokuto tosses his hands upward, palms open and facing towards the ceiling. “Nothing feels better than sweet justice and peace in your home country. Y’know, I’m willing to bet you would trade even your own organs if it meant being constantly _righteous_.”

Kuroo doesn’t move.

No one does.

The monologue is dramatic, but Iwaizumi is beyond intrigued. A small part of him is terrified. He can’t remember the last time he felt chills like this around someone.

“Tell me something, Tetsu. If you’re so damned proud, willing to die for your country...why are you still here?”

Kuroo stiffens.

“You’re so quick to raise the best of the best, like myself, and the runner up,” Bokuto gestures lazily to Iwaizumi, “and fill our heads with pretty little things about glory and honor. And all the same, at the end of the day, if we don’t make it, you go home pick a new number from the lottery. Who’s next? Who will be M’s next favorite?”

“That’s enough—”

“Another question!” Bokuto practically sings, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Did you ever get that rule passed to not let your agents and quartermasters fuck? Because if you did…” Bokuto rolls his eyes innocently towards Iwaizumi and he whistles, “well, I’m not gonna name any names, but _someone_ in this room is in trouble.”

Iwaizumi turns his head from watching Bokuto for a brief moment to look at his boss. Whatever Bokuto is up to, it’s working. Kuroo looks completely shaken, his eyes tight and hands probably clammy with fists balled so hard his knuckles are marble white.

“I can’t blame you, Hajime, he’s pretty. Mine was too. Gorgeous, actually,” Bokuto smiles at Iwaizumi with an inkling of sympathy.

It’s the kind that Iwaizumi doesn’t want, because the look on Bokuto’s face is something of familiarity. Like he knows _exactly_ what kind of situation Iwaizumi is in.

“If there was one person in the world that could rule me, it was him.”

The past tense reference to this Quartermaster makes Iwaizumi uneasy.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” Kuroo growls, “but it stops. Right now.”

“Aw, don’t spoil the fun. At least let me tell them why you’re a sick son of a bitch! Or did you want to tell them yourself, Tetsu?” Bokuto’s voice is soft. Unusually gentle. “You left us to die out there,” he murmurs, eyes filled with what looks like disappointment. “I got my hands on my death file, you looked so put together that day.”

He slumps his shoulders and sways from left to right. “If I had really died that day, you want to know what your last words were? I think about them a lot, a little motivator from time to time.”

Bokuto steps closer to the glass wall. “Just before the mic cut out. Do you remember what you said? No? Ah that’s okay. I’ll remind you!”

Bokuto’s eyes flicker, and suddenly the twinkle of amusement is gone. They look bleak, cold, wide like a predator. “Believe in me, Koutarou. _”_

Iwaizumi fits the gaps of the story together, looking down at the floor for a moment to escape the tense air between M and his previous 004. Kuroo abandoned him. He filled him with hope and abandoned him.

“ _Take the shot_.”

A twinge of empathy pulses in his chest. Iwaizumi mutes it by shifting his weight and keeping his eyes loosely concentrated on Bokuto.

“I believed in you. I told Keiji so many times, ‘Tetsu won’t leave us behind’. But you did. You left us to rot in cells filled with blood stains and piss. You walked the best men you had into a suicide trap and _left_ us there!” Bokuto’s voice grows louder as he circles around the small bit of space he’s allowed to roam in.

“Do you know what it’s like to watch someone break the thing you love most in this world? To dissolve it until it’s weak and brittle, and all it takes is a small gust of wind and— “ Bokuto flicks his hands forward, “it’s gone.”

“You got yourself into that situa—”

“ _Oh shut up!_ That’s bullshit and you know it! _You_ sent me on that mission. You sent _him_ on that mission! You walked us right up to death’s doorstep and laughed the whole goddamn way home!” Bokuto sneers at him through the glass casing.

“I was so close. I had nothing left, with Akaashi mutilated, destroyed. So I used the last thing I had, my one way ticket to join him. That little capsule _you_ gave me.”

Iwaizumi’s eyes widen as Bokuto reaches into his mouth to dislodge what looks to be a vital piece that holds him together. “It didn’t work,” he mumbles, “it burned my insides, led me through stages of unbearable pain and almost to the euphoria before death and it _didn’t work_. The least you could have done was let me die with him!”

Bokuto’s fists bang so hard against the glass it probably rattled something around in his own palms, but he doesn’t look the least bit phased by it. “You _ripped_ him away from me, for what? Glory? The greater good? Were you jealous? I can see why, god knows you’re shitty at _existing_. So tell me Tetsu. huh? What was it? What made you throw us away?”

Kuroo goes to open his mouth, but he clamps it shut when Bokuto bangs against the glass again. “I don’t need your rulebook answers! Look at what you fucked up! Look _,_ Tetsu!”

Kuroo tries not to give Bokuto the satisfaction.

“ _LOOK AT ME!_ ” Bokuto roars, pent up anger saved for this one explosive moment, his voice thunderous as it breaks through the glass and bounces off the walls, sending chills down spines and breaking Kuroo’s facade altogether.

Kuroo peels his eyes up from the floor, and takes a look at Bokuto.

Iwaizumi follows suit, and the gruesome sight makes every fiber in his body want to turn away. His face, sunken in and missing a quarter of his teeth on the left side, looks gruesome. Painful. Something you would find deep in the scariest parts of a nightmare, just before you shot out of bed in a bucket of sweat.

Bokuto inserts the retainer again, letting his face shift back to normal before he wipes his fingers onto his jumper.

“So here’s what I’m going to do for you, Tetsurou. I’m going to rip away the things you love the most in this world, which unfortunately aren’t many, but still relevant. I’m going to let you feel a fraction of what I felt when I watched them brutalize Akaashi until he shattered. And then, when I have you begging me for a sweet solace that only death can bring?”

Bokuto places his palm flat against the glass, eyes wide with amusement. “I’ll bring you to it. That euphoria, and let you feel it. And then I’m going to deprive you of it, until you forget how to do anything in this world but crave the day you stop breathing.”

Bokuto smiles through the class as he sits down on the bench again.

Kuroo whirls around on his heel and high tails it for the door, not sure he can take much more. Iwaizumi and Sawamura are right behind him, following him to the door to get out.

Before they manage to get on the other side of the door, where the air doesn’t feel like poison in their lungs, they hear Bokuto murmur something darkly, as both a warning and a promise.

“ _Believe in me,_ _Tetsurou_.”

  


* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi trails silently after Kuroo down the hallways, away from the temporary cell Bokuto is being held in, with Sawamura walking at his side.

They’re all shaken from the conversation with Bokuto, Kuroo most of all. He walks quickly, back straight and head held high, but his shoulders are tense and he still has yet to unclench his fists. Bokuto’s words are clearly weighing heavily on him.

Maybe it’s wrong, but Iwaizumi can kind of sympathize with Bokuto. He knows how it feels to hear someone you thought you were close to dismiss your existence so easily. And he doesn’t want to think about how he’d react to seeing Oikawa tortured, and then killed right before his very eyes. The agony of that thought is just too great, and it reminds him of all the reasons he’s held himself back from Oikawa in the first place.

Part of him is afraid after seeing Bokuto, wondering if one day he could turn out the same way. Angry. Vengeful. Willing to stop at nothing to repay eye for an eye.

Iwaizumi would like to think he’d turn out better, but then he knows himself far too well.

Kuroo stops, so suddenly that Sawamura walks right past him, and then turns around to look at Iwaizumi. His expression is strained, he’s struggling to remain composed.

“Bokuto Koutarou was a brilliant agent. Best in his field. As was Akaashi Keiji, his Quartermaster,” Kuroo says. Every word seems like a struggle for him, and the explanation falls heavily into the silence of the hallway. “There was an issue in Montenegro that needed to be dealt with, and those two were the only ones capable of handling it at the time. But unfortunately, it went wrong. They got captured, and we had no way of getting them out. Sending anyone else after them would have been suicide. So I had to leave them behind.”

“Like you did with me.”

Whatever control Kuroo has over his expression, it vanishes with Iwaizumi’s blunt words, and his face drops into something pained, and filled with regret.

“I’m not proud of the call I made, Hajime,” he answers. “But that’s what being M means. Sometimes you need to sacrifice everything you love to make sure no one else has to.”

Iwaizumi wonders if there’s a double meaning behind those words, or some sort of hidden message, but before he can come to any conclusion, Kuroo turns around and continues walking, striding with a purpose.

“I want to know what’s on his laptop. Check if he sent those files to anyone, and if so, then who. This needs to get resolved,” Kuroo says, and Iwaizumi nods.

Oikawa’s probably already working on it down in Q branch. He’d been itching to hook up Bokuto’s laptop and crack through its security all through the plane ride back from Shanghai.

They reach the point of the hallway where Iwaizumi will branch off and head down to Q branch, while Kuroo and Sawamura drive off for Kuroo’s public inquiry. Iwaizumi turns to make his exit, only to be called to a stop by Kuroo. He glances over his shoulder.

“I _am_ sorry for what happened with Istanbul. Sacrificing you was never something I took lightly.”

It’s not quite the grovelling apology Iwaizumi had been hoping for, but it’s genuine, and it sends a rush of empathy through Iwaizumi.

He nods once more at Kuroo, but this time it’s with a smile. Recognizing the peace gesture, Kuroo smiles back, and then they go their separate ways.

  


* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi steps through the doors into Oikawa’s laboratory, watching Oikawa shoot up from behind a file cabinet full of God knows what to look at him, a little disheveled but practically bursting with excitement.

“Someone is in a good mood,” Iwaizumi tilts his head, watching Oikawa shuffle papers together before he walks over to the newest addition in his lab; Bokuto’s computer.

Oikawa looks like a kid in a candy store, fingers itching to start cracking at whatever is stored on this hardware. “Honestly? This is better than Christmas,” he smiles wide, and Iwaizumi looks away before his lungs malfunction, turning to the giant monitor in front of them.

“I did just a bit of digging while you were gone,” Oikawa admits, “I wanted to save all the good stuff for when you got back.”

“How thoughtful.”

“I know you like to watch me work,” Oikawa winks, before he powers up the system. “How...how did it go in there?”

Iwaizumi doesn’t look at him when he hears the question, but the grim expression that flashes across his face is enough for Oikawa to drop the topic altogether. Instead, Oikawa adjusts his glasses and pulls his fingers through his hair, the way he always does when he’s about to get to work.

 _Fuck these lungs_ , Iwaizumi curses at himself, squinting at the giant screen and focusing on the sound of Oikawa’s fingers across the keyboard.

“Well, all my information on this guy is holding true,” Oikawa chews the inside of his cheek, “he’s using some serious security on this.”

“A field agent that can double as a Quartermaster, huh?” Iwaizumi raises his brows. That’s a seriously impressive title to slap under someone’s resume. This Bokuto is definitely not all bark.

Oikawa stops typing for just a second to squint down at the laptop. “There are about six people in the entire world skilled enough to create fail safe protocols like these.”

Iwaizumi wonders just how skilled Bokuto really is. And if he was this good of an agent, just how dangerous was his Quartermaster? He knows Oikawa is thinking the same thing, with both envy and awe written on his face.

“All the reports are accurate and that pisses me off. I’m assuming Bokuto learned a thing or two from his Quartermaster,” Oikawa snags his lip between his teeth in thought.

“Well, can you do anything about it or not?”

Oikawa tilts his head to look at Iwaizumi with an arched brow, lip still pulled between his teeth, before his eyes twinkle and his mouth curves into a crooked smile.

“Didn’t I tell you I’m the best there is?”

Iwaizumi bites his cheek to keep from smiling back, but the playfulness reaches his eyes and it’s enough for Oikawa to understand. He turns back to the computer and gets back to work.

It a matter of a few minutes, Oikawa has broken past all the protocols, but something stops him again.

Iwaizumi takes a step closer to him out of concern. “What is it?”

“This Quartermaster was good, Iwa-chan. And he left quite a lot of knowledge behind for Bokuto.” Oikawa points at the giant screen, switching the image over for a better view. “See that?”

Iwaizumi watches as this web like shape continuously bounces around and spins with no particular pattern to it,

“A polymorphic engine. It uses a code that constantly mutates while keeping the original algorithm intact. While the code semantics remain the same, it’s nearly impossible to get to them if you can’t find the key.”

“Like a needle in a haystack?”

“More like in a needle stack,” Oikawa chews on the tip of his thumb, mind scrambling to sort out his thoughts before he makes any attempts to start cracking at this thing. Bokuto is bound to have set up some more traps further down.

“If those two were still in MI6 today, they’d give us a run for our money.”

“Well, they did spend quite a lot of time together,” Iwaizumi comments, recalling the way Bokuto bounced between absolutely broken to complete emptiness as he talked about his Quartermaster.

“For a Quartermaster to reveal all of his tricks to an agent, he must have really trusted him.”

"That’s one way of putting it.”

Oikawa freezes over the laptop, eyes drifting away from the computer screen to look right at Iwaizumi. His face alone tells Iwaizumi he understands. It wasn’t some simple partnership between Q and Agent.

And now they both know why Kuroo was never keen on letting them work as closely as they did, with all of their flirtatious banter across communications, Iwaizumi dropping by Oikawa’s lab and leaving him with something to smile and daydream about.

Bokuto went awol because he lost his lover in the worst of ways. All Kuroo can see is a repeat of history, allotting Iwaizumi to have his weakness be a person so close to the danger he thrives in.

Oikawa goes back to clacking away at the keys, letting the unspoken feelings die out alongside the tension, until it’s nothing more than just a sore subject.

Iwaizumi quietly wonders if it would be worth it to show Oikawa how to survive in the field. It terrifies him that he finds it easy to step into Bokuto’s shoes and think like he did. What could he possibly do to ensure the safety of his Quartermaster?

He finds himself watching Oikawa more than the screen now.

Oikawa doesn’t shoot. He hates guns, complaining that the weight of a thousand lives sitting in his palms doesn’t let him sleep at night. He can fight, sure, but how often does he get into a brawl with someone twice his size, just as skilled as he is, if not more so? How does he work under pressure? Not behind screens, but with a gun pointed to his vitals, hands bound with zip ties, staring death in the face?

Iwaizumi feels a small bout of nausea pit in his stomach. The thought of letting Oikawa go through anything like that. The thought of _watching_ Oikawa go through anything like that.

The line between where he and Bokuto stand isn’t as thick as he first thought it was.

Iwaizumi can easily see himself turning the world on its head to keep Oikawa safe. And he knows, despite everything he and Kuroo have been through, if Oikawa didn’t make it out alive, he would never forgive him. Not Kuroo, not himself, not anyone.

He knows he fucked up, letting Oikawa wriggle his way into his heart and wrap around it like a vice. He figured he had more control than to let a few rounds of banter topped with some sentiment get to his head.

“When you’re done overthinking, you can feel free to help me.”

Iwaizumi jolts, eyes snapping away from the tile to Oikawa. The brunet smirks at him, seeing Iwaizumi look like a deer caught in headlights.

Oikawa leans in to close the short distance between them, lowering his voice as though the room might be filled with anyone else but them. He frees one hand from the keyboard and latches his hand underneath Iwaizumi’s chin, using the small height gap to his advantage for once.

“You’re not him,” he murmurs softly, chestnut gaze locked on Iwaizumi’s dark hazel. “Do you trust me, Hajime?”

“Do I need to answer?” Iwaizumi mouths back, just as quiet.

The tension between them feels like fireworks on the verge of bursting, with faces so close all one of them has to do is tilt forward. Iwaizumi forces his hands still at their sides; it’s the last place they want to be, and Oikawa is seriously testing his self-restraint, but he knows he can’t. Not yet anyway.

“Yes,” he breathes, feeling the curve of Oikawa’s mouth close enough against the corner of his that it might as well be real, but there’s just a sliver of space that they both agree can’t be broken just yet.

Oikawa smooths his thumb across Iwaizumi’s cheek, hand slipping from his chin to ghost across his entire jawline, before it wraps around his neck. His mouth follows a similar pattern on the opposite side, before his lips stop to rest at the hollow of Iwaizumi’s ear.

“As soon as we get this over with,” Oikawa begins.

Iwaizumi is torn between wanting to throw Oikawa across the room, and melt beneath his touch.

He pulls away without saying anything else. It’s too soon to finish that sentence, not with the job still going and both of them on the clock. But the little bit of time to spare was enough reassurance for Iwaizumi.

The feeling is mutual, and Oikawa isn’t going anywhere.

“You’re wasting time,” Iwaizumi turns away from him and looks back at the screen.

“Yessir,” Oikawa snorts, knowing Iwaizumi is trying hard not to smile. He gets back to work, fingers quickly moving in on his second attempt to crack the code.

The web on screen continues to shift. Every few seconds or so, it takes on a new shape, morphing whenever Oikawa attempts to figure out its key. Letters and numbers flash in six columns along the side of the screen. They appear to correspond to specific, individual points within the web, and with each of Oikawa’s attempts they move positions, shifting right along with the information.

Line up the highlighted numbers correctly, and it would give them the key, or so Iwaizumi assumes.

As the information continues to morph, Oikawa grows more frustrated, and more determined. His glasses slip slightly down his nose, but he never stops typing. His eyes are glued to the screen, completely focused on his task.

Iwaizumi also concentrates on the information before them. He’s no adept at hacking, but perhaps he can pick up on some hint that will help his Quartermaster. Oikawa has so much to scrutinize on the screen already, it’s the least Iwaizumi can do.

What has only been ten minutes feels like two hours; Oikawa is doing his best not to let frustration eat at him, and Iwaizumi is doing everything he can to be useful.

Oikawa wasn’t kidding when he said a needle in a needle stack.

Iwaizumi is about to suggest that maybe they try taking their eyes off of the screen for a moment to think, but before he can get the words out, he catches something on the right side of the screen.

“Hang on,” he steps away from his side and walks towards the giant monitor. “Right here,” he points, gesturing to the columns of letters and numbers. They fall in rows of two, and Iwaizumi points to the first four rows. “See that?”

Oikawa squints at it, following Iwaizumi’s fingers as he taps up and down the spaces. “Lace those together.”

Oikawa does, eyes widening at the word it creates.

“Granborough Road,” Iwaizumi says aloud, “that’s the abandoned rail station.”

“What on earth would he want with that?” Oikawa asks, but as he uses ‘Granborough’ as the key, the coding that was once warped together unravels to reveal the entire map of subterranean London.

“Holy shit,” Oikawa whispers. Iwaizumi ignores the admiration in Oikawa’s voice, and focuses on just why Bokuto decided to encrypt such a map. Him having such an intricate layout of a map that hardly anyone uses makes Iwaizumi nervous.

Oikawa is about to run a scan across the map, hoping to find any data laced within, but he pauses, lifting his eyes over the screen when he sees the locked hatches on the floor open up. “What in the…” he mumbles, spinning around to see not just one, but all of them unlocked. What he first thought could just be a malfunction is definitely not the case.

“He’s inside,” Iwaizumi growls. Simultaneously, the words “System Security Breach” flash across the monitor. Oikawa’s eyes widen, watching a skull appear and the words “NOT SUCH A CLEVER BOY” flash in bold letters.

“Goddamnit,” Oikawa snarls, ripping the wiring from Bokuto’s laptop to separate him from getting further into the system.

“Oikawa, shut down that hack and start tracking me, I’m going after him,” Iwaizumi throws over his shoulder, making a break for the doorway.

“Got it!” Oikawa shouts, muttering curses to himself as tries to quickly contain the damage.

Iwaizumi breaks into a full sprint down the hallway to get back to Bokuto’s cell. As he races through the narrow halls and tries not to barrel into anyone else scrambling about, he pieces thoughts together.

Bokuto having a map of subterranean London gives him the perfect opportunity to get wherever he wanted, to make a clean escape from the clutches of MI6. He knew that if Oikawa was to get his hands on that technology, he’d crack through any and every security system thrown his way. All Bokuto had to do was set a trap and watch Oikawa’s attempts backfire.

Iwaizumi powers himself even harder down the halls and closer to Bokuto’s cell, now knowing where he’s headed.

Iwaizumi nearly breaks the door off of its hinges as he pushes through it, praying that by some miracle, Bokuto is still sitting there whistling to himself.

Two dead guards and an open maintenance hatch in the floor say otherwise.

“Q,” Iwaizumi gasps, “He’s gone.”

  


* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi’s feet splash into large puddle as he drops from the ladder leading from MI6 above to subterranean London. He glances about for a second. There’s only one way out that Bokuto could have taken, and Iwaizumi quickly jogs down it, searching for any signs of their escaped prisoner.

“I’m going to need some direction here soon,” he says to Oikawa via the new communicator he’d picked up right after returning from Shanghai. “I’m in some tunnel below isolation.”

“Just give me a moment. I’m trying to find you,” Oikawa replies. His fingers are flying across the keyboard, probably zeroing in on the map they’d pulled up from Bokuto’s laptop. No reason not to use it as long as it’s already there, after all.

Iwaizumi continues along the tunnel, soon coming upon the top of a maintenance stairwell. He glances over the edge. The stairs spiral down about four stories into the underground, and there, at the bottom, Iwaizumi’s sees the back of Bokuto’s leg vanish into yet another tunnel.

Iwaizumi pulls out his pistol and starts sprinting down the metal stairs.

“Any time now would be great, Q,” he quips.

“Patience, Iwa-chan. Patience.”

Iwaizumi grunts in reply and jumps the last few steps to the bottom. There’s another short tunnel, and then Iwaizumi is in the maintenance passages, and is completely lost.

There are doors all along the passageway, all of them leading God knows where. Considering the map Bokuto had left on his computer, it seems reasonable to assume he’s headed into the Tube tunnels, but Iwaizumi has no idea which door he needs to take in order to follow. Bokuto could have gone through any of them.

“ _Oikawa,_ ” he hisses insistently. There isn’t time for this. He can’t afford to lose Bokuto amid the maze of the underground.

“Jesus fucking Christ, just wait one goddamn- oh! Found you!” There’s some more clacking from Oikawa’s end, and then, “Go through the door on your left.”

Iwaizumi obeys and shoulders through the old, rusty door. It opens up into the narrow tunnel of the Tube— thankfully free of trains at that moment— but Bokuto is nowhere to be seen.

“Now what?”

“There’s a service door a few feet to your right.”

Turning his head, Iwaizumi finds what Oikawa is talking about and runs over. No time to dally with the small windows of time between trains. He needs to get out, and fast.

His hand grasps the handle of the door and pushes. It doesn’t move.

“Q, the door’s stuck,” he says. Irritation and impatience are laced through every word.

“What do you mean the door’s stuck?”

“Exactly what I said, dumbass. It’s stuck!”

“That can’t be right. It’s a door. Put your back into it or something.”

“Why don’t you come down here and put _your_ back into it?”

There’s a frustrated _humph_ in Iwaizumi’s ear, and he can just imagine the matching expression on Oikawa’s face, lips pressed into a pout and those warm, brown eyes of his suddenly cold and hard.

“Just open the goddamn door, Hajime.”

Iwaizumi opens his mouth to reply, possibly to throw in some quip about Oikawa doing his job and finding him another exit to use, when he hears the faint, telltale rumble of a train along the tracks, headed right in his direction.

“Shit.”

There’s no time to find a different exit now. He has to make this one work. Now.

He shakes the door, hoping to maybe dislodge whatever is keeping it closed, but when that doesn’t work he resorts to more primitive means. He takes a few steps back, and then throws his body against the door. And then again when it still doesn’t move.

The train is getting closer. Iwaizumi can see the lights crawling along the tunnel wall, and it’s in sheer desperation that Iwaizumi finally slams into the door with enough force to make it budge, and then swing all the way open. He falls into the service hallway just moments before the train rushes past.

Iwaizumi sighs in relief. “Got the door open,” he informs Oikawa, who lets out a small, shaky breath of his own at the news.

“Told you, Iwa-chan. You just needed to use those muscles of yours.”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes and continues forward. He flushes out into a crowd, eyes quickly moving around to see where Bokuto may have headed. “Q, can you see him?”

Iwaizumi can hear Oikawa muttering something to himself, the soft noise of clicking as his fingers move around to adjust the cameras as necessary. He looks through the crowd, watching as bodies both pile in and out of the stopped train.

“Q, I need you to tell me if he’s getting on that train.”

“I’m looking,” Oikawa bites back.

Iwaizumi watches the traffic die down, probably going into the last call before the train departs. “ _Oikawa_ ,” he growls, stepping further down the walkway. “Do I get on the train or not?!”

The small bit of silence already has Iwaizumi turning on his heel to head back through the station, probably to another terminal or up to the surface. The doors to the train close, engine starting up and beginning to push it down into the tunnel.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa mutters, “get on the train.”

Iwaizumi grits his teeth, pivoting hard and breaking into a run to catch the train as it picks up speed. He’s going to rip Oikawa a new one for this later; he’s starting to feel exhaustion pull at his shoulder.

When he’s nearly out of space to run, he leaps off the edge of the station and reaches out hard for the handle bars against the back, managing to snag one and plant his feet safely onto the back platform. He lets out a sigh of relief.

“I take it you made it then,” Oikawa sounds smug in his ear.

Iwaizumi is _definitely_ going to rip him a new one.

He turns around and looks into the small window of the door, seeing a woman staring at him with wide eyes, her jaw dropped into her lap.

“Open the door,” he mouths.

She sits there in shock until he snaps at her, hands frantically reaching to open the latch.

“Don’t mind me,” he nods towards her and breezes right past, onto the next car.

He weaves in and out of the stacked bodies, eyes narrowed and searching hard for Bokuto. As he scans across the car, his eyes stop on the map of the train lines to his left. Iwaizumi’s breath catches when he sees the next stop jump out at him.

Westminster.

Where Kuroo currently is.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi murmurs, voice soft as he continues to weave through the car. “Bokuto is headed for M. Get him out of there.”

“Right, on it,” Oikawa confirms.

Iwaizumi looks up from pressing his shoulder in between a gap of two people and glances through the small windows between his car and the next. There he is, unmistakably gold eyes staring right back at him.

They only hold gazes for a brief moment before the train slows to a stop. As soon as the doors open, Iwaizumi barrels over people to climb his way out of the train and continue the chase.

Of course, it’d be too easy if he caught Bokuto right as he jumped off. Iwaizumi looks around again, having lost sight of him in the rush of people descending the escalator. Knowing Bokuto is probably in a hurry, now that he’s been sighted, he probably ducked out of the crowds and into some type of side tunnel.

Iwaizumi thanks his gut instinct when he finds a maintenance door left ajar. He squeezes through and heads down the corridor until the dim hallway expands into a cavernous room. He doesn’t have to look hard for Bokuto. Iwaizumi whips out his gun, firing rapidly across the room at the shadow ascending the ladder.

Bokuto stops moving and turns around, shooting a pout towards Iwaizumi. “Aw, you missed me.”

“Promise you I won’t next time.” Iwaizumi adjusts his grip on the gun, finger ready and eager over the trigger.

“Hey, Hajime. I wanna show you a new little toy I got,” Bokuto smiles, and leans against the ladder, freeing up one hand to show him a black, rectangular device in his palm. “Neat, right? It’s a _radio_.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t get the chance to say anything else as Bokuto’s thumb jams down on the button.

There’s a large explosion from behind him, forceful enough to send Iwaizumi stumbling forward, but no more than that. It’s almost disappointing until he feels the ground begins to quake, and Iwaizumi instantly rushes to find cover. He makes it into a safe spot and feels the ground rumble even harder as the ceiling caves in, and with it, the subway train that he had just been on only a few moments ago.

The vehicle crashes hard into the ground and scrapes along rubble and concrete until it slows to a stop, having kicked up enough dust to fill all the air around the room. Iwaizumi lets out a horrendous cough, waving some of the dust away from him and trying to look for a way out. He would stay to help, but with Bokuto on the move, and no word from Oikawa on M’s status, he can’t afford to stick around here.

Through the thick clouds of dirt and smoke, Iwaizumi manages to see the hole where Bokuto had been perched. Looks like he escaped just fine.

“Jesus Christ, 004, you alright down there?”

“ _Now_ you speak,” Iwaizumi grunts, voice slightly hoarse from inhaling dust and debris. He swats at the clay colored specks on his suit and makes his way towards an exit.

“Well, it’s not like you would have heard me over all that noise,” Oikawa argues, “just take this path back up and you’ll be back on top of Westminster station. You might wanna hurry, Bokuto is on his way there now, and I haven’t had a single word from Kindaichi yet.”

Iwaizumi is convinced his patience is being tested.

Kindaichi _always_ answers his phone, and of course, when he really needs to answer, he’s nowhere to be found.

Iwaizumi pulls himself out from the underside of London and out onto the streets, first sucking in a breath of fresh air before bursting into a run for what feels like the tenth time.

“Iwa-chan—”

“ _I know_.” Iwaizumi doesn’t need to hear it. He knows Bokuto has reached the building by now. But Iwaizumi is right behind him, racing towards the doors. He knows Kuroo is capable, but a small part of him places a little prayer in the back of his mind as he hangs a left at the street corner, seeing the building just across the street.

Iwaizumi practically kicks the doors in and heads further into building, pulling his gun out to have at the ready as he reaches the doors of the conference room. The two dead guards outside and the doors wide open with people scrambling around to get out are indicative that Bokuto has made his presence known.

He darts around the corner to a side door and kicks it open, aiming right at Bokuto and firing without hesitation.

Bokuto darts behind a bench before any of the bullets can penetrate.

As he tilts over the bench in attempt to fire back, Iwaizumi drops down takes a look around the room. Sawamura is in the corner, holding his shoulder and grimacing, all the while still looking around for a body he can fill with bullets.

Iwaizumi then sees Sugawara, sitting tucked behind one of the benches, completely weaponless and unable to move. He looks down, at the gun sitting loose underneath a dead officer’s fingertips, and gives it a swift kick, sending it over to bounce against Sugawara’s heels. The latter picks up the pistol and reaches back, giving suppressive fire for Iwaizumi and Sawamura.

Sawamura manages to pick off the last of the henchmen with Sugawara’s help, and Iwaizumi fires off at two fire extinguishers sitting tucked against the wall, letting the room fill with something of a smoke screen as he makes a break for Kuroo, placed in the center of a room behind a flipped table.

With all of his henchmen dead, Bokuto turns to retreat. Iwaizumi goes to chase after him again, but by the time he gets outside, Bokuto is already inside of a car and too far down the road to be followed.

“Iwa-chan, talk to me dammit, what is going on?”

“I’m fine,” Iwaizumi sighs, “he got away. The ambush turned into a goddamned blood bath.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“I think Sawamura got hit, but other than that,” Iwaizumi trails off, watching Kindaichi walk Kuroo towards the car in a hurry. He races over to the car and jumps into the driver’s seat, revving the engine and peeling away as soon as Kuroo climbs in.

“Christ! You just—you just left Kindaichi!” Kuroo barks, slamming backwards into the seat. Iwaizumi peeks in the rearview mirror to see Kindaichi tossing his hands into the air out of frustration. He does feel a little bad, but Kindaichi will understand. He’ll apologize later.

“It’s fine, Sugawara will take care of him. I need you to come with me.”

“And where the hell is that?”

“To end all of this,” Iwaizumi shifts the car into a higher gear as he accelerates down the street. “Oikawa.”

“Present,” Oikawa sings into his ear.

“I need you to do something for me,” Iwaizumi shifts gears again, “Bokuto most likely went into hiding, and we need to draw him out as quickly as possible. I need you to create a trail for him.”

“You really want me to bait that guy?” Oikawa asks, sounding more concerned than excited. Bokuto did manage to escape a high security facility full of agents, crash a subway train and decimate a room full of MI6 officials inside of an hour. Bringing someone like that to your doorstep is beyond crazy.

“Can you do it?” Iwaizumi asks.

Silence dwells over the line for a long moment. Iwaizumi bites into his lip when he feels Kuroo staring into the back of his skull.

“Come back to headquarters.”

“Oikawa I don’t have ti—”

“Do you want me to help you or not?”

Iwaizumi slams his head back against the headrest in annoyance. With as stubborn as Oikawa is, he’s not going to let up until Iwaizumi either argues him into submission or goes along with it. But with the urgency in Oikawa’s voice, Iwaizumi decides it’ll just be simpler if he drives back to headquarters.

Maybe it’s even better that he stop by. He’s not sure when he’ll be back again.

Or if he’ll be back.

  


* * *

 

 

Oikawa is already waiting for them when Iwaizumi pulls up to headquarters, standing next to a sleek, white car that looks like it came out of the 1960s.

Iwaizumi recognizes the car. It’s the one he favored before MI6 switched over to the more modern, uniform vehicles, like the one he and Kuroo are stepping out from. What Iwaizumi doesn’t understand, however, is why it’s here, and what Oikawa plans to use it for.

“What is this?” he questions as he slams his car door shut and strides over to Oikawa.

“Your new ride.”

Oikawa tries to give him a cheeky grin, but it looks off. Too tight, too strained, obviously forced. He’s not happy with Iwaizumi, there’s stress written all over his face, and it’s all Iwaizumi can do not to pull him into a tight embrace right then and there. But Iwaizumi knows if he does that, knowing where he’s about to go and what he’s about to do, he’ll completely break down. And he still has a job to do.

Oikawa looks away from Iwaizumi’s probing stare and clears his throat. “Company cars are too easily tracked. Completely defeats the purpose of the trail I created.”

Iwaizumi blinks.

“What?”

“You think I don’t already know where you’re going?” He shoves his hands into his coat pockets, and this time his smile is a little more genuine. A little more teasing. “Oh ye of little faith.”

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi breathes. He places his hands on Oikawa’s shoulders, staring up at the Quartermaster in astonishment. “You’re fucking incredible, you know that?”

Oikawa laughs. “Yes, yes. I’m the best thing in your life. You love me, I know. Now can we get going?” he says, pulling out a set of keys from his pocket. Iwaizumi reaches for them, only for Oikawa lift them high into the air, out of Iwaizumi’s reach. “I’ll drive.”

“No,” Iwaizumi immediately answers. Panic is settling into his stomach. “No. You’re not coming.”

“Do we really have the time to argue about this, Iwa-chan?”

“I’m not arguing. I’m telling you,” he says firmly, “You’re not coming. It’s too dangerous.”

Oikawa’s eyes narrow.

“I’m not weak, Hajime. I don’t need your protection.”

“This isn’t about that.”

“Isn’t it?” He lifts his chin imperiously and glares down at Iwaizumi. There’s a flicker of anger in his eyes, but what’s more biting is the disappointment. “You think just because I’m a Quartermaster I can’t handle myself out in the field.”

“That’s not- I just-” Iwaizumi growls, ruffling his hair in frustration.

Oikawa is watching him coldly. He doesn’t understand. Doesn’t get that this has very little to do with Oikawa’s weakness, and everything to do with Iwaizumi’s own. He’s not sure he could live with himself if anything were to happen to Oikawa.

“Kuroo isn’t worried for nothing,” Iwaizumi mutters quietly, his fists clenched tight and eyes glaring down at the floor.

Oikawa tilts back, eyes softening in understanding. He watches Iwaizumi turn away to adjust his gun holsters. He then lifts his head to look at Kuroo, who is watching the entire thing happen while standing awkwardly against the car they’re going to leave behind.

“I _am_ coming with you,” he states, like there isn’t any room for discussion.

“You really are irritating.” Kuroo folds his arms across his chest, eyes shifting to Oikawa, then Iwaizumi and back. “What do you think you can help us with out there? We’re going dark.”

“And I’ve only ever worked in the shadows,” Oikawa argues.

Kuroo remains quiet for a moment, before he lets out a sigh and pushes away from the company car. “Looks like I can’t stop you.”

“Wh—Kuroo!” Iwaizumi whips around. “You can’t be serious!”

“Does that look like the face of someone who is joking?” Kuroo points to Oikawa, and sure enough, there isn’t any room for humor. Oikawa is dead set on coming with them, backpack strapped tight to his back and fingers locked tight around the keys.

Iwaizumi sends him one last pleading look, a completely vulnerable expression that screams, _“Don’t do this”_. But Oikawa ignores it and pulls the driver side door open. “M, get in,” he orders.

Kuroo walks towards the car and crams himself into the back, grumbling something about how he’s not a “damned child”. As he goes to finish strapping his seatbelt across his body, he peeks his head out far enough to say, “if you two could finish your lovers spat before we leave, that’d be great. It’s a long drive, and I’m not going to endure awkward tension.”

Oikawa takes the chance right then to toss authority out the window and slam the door shut in Kuroo’s face. “Cheeky bastard,” he smirks. The windows are tinted too dark for him to see anything more than Kuroo’s faint outline, but he knows he’s probably scowling at him right now.

“You are absolutely insane,” Iwaizumi snaps, not sparing a single moment now that Kuroo is out of earshot. The most he’ll hear is a dull, incomprehensible mumble. “Did you not learn anything from this entire mission we’ve been through?”

“I learned a lot, actually. Especially after I lost to a damn field agent at my own game,” Oikawa spits, still bitter about letting Bokuto slip through his own security, gaining access to MI6. He tilts forward and pushes into Iwaizumi’s personal space, eyes tight and jaw clenched. “This isn’t just about you.”

“And I could care less about your battered pride. I’m more concerned with keeping you alive.”

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa grins, “are you worried about me?”

“Don’t play games with me. Give me the keys, and go back inside.”

“Christ,” Oikawa sighs, and steps away from him. “Relax, _mom_. Either you can go inside, or get in the car. Either way, I’m still driving.”

Oikawa cuts the conversation short and walks over to the driver side door, climbing in before Iwaizumi has a chance to pull him out or continue to argue.

Iwaizumi stares at him through the windshield. Oikawa wanting to come with isn’t entirely about what happened back at his lab. He knows that he’s tagging along because he’s worried. The sentiment is cute, sure. Wanted, absolutely. But Iwaizumi would prefer if Oikawa didn’t act on it the way he is.

Bokuto’s past continues to jump into Iwaizumi’s mind and plague his thoughts. He may be after Kuroo, but he definitely wouldn’t pass up the chance to get his hands on Oikawa. Knowing Iwaizumi would break, knowing Kuroo would break. Oikawa isn’t just _his_ weakness anymore.

And still, with all of that in mind, Oikawa waltzed his ass right into the fight.

Iwaizumi puts it to bed for now, giving in and walking around to the passenger side. Oikawa smiles as Iwaizumi straps himself in, and turns the key, listening to the engine come to life. “Knew you’d see it my way.”

“This isn’t over,” Iwaizumi growls, and stares straight ahead.

“Alright, awkward silence it is then,” Kuroo reclines across the length of the small backseat and tries to force himself to sleep.

Tries, being the keyword.

Oikawa’s driving is something no one had questioned up until right now, when he slams his foot on the gas and peels out of the garage.

It’s clear now that he wanted to drive because he hardly gets to.

Now they know why.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allie's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/eclecticinkling)  
> Remmi's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/tendousatori)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Every single thing I’ve given you, you’ve lost. So do me a favor…” Oikawa sniffs, nuzzling his face into the crook of Iwaizumi’s neck.
> 
> “What is it?”
> 
> “Don’t lose me.”

A house appears among the rolling landscape not long after dawn breaks.

Oikawa is exhausted, having driven from London into the Scottish countryside all through the night, but his tiredness is pushed to the back of his mind as he sees the manor appear, growing larger and more imposing the closer they get to it. They pass through two short pillars on either side of the road, the only opening among the crumbling, stone fence that surrounds the estate. On one, Oikawa sees the metal likeness of a stag, and underneath is the word “Skyfall.” Their destination.

Oikawa glances to the side, where Iwaizumi is sitting. The agent is silent, which wouldn’t be that unusual if not for the clenching of his jaw and the fingers digging harshly into both of Iwaizumi’s arms, nearly tearing at the cloth.

This homecoming clearly isn’t welcome. Not that Oikawa can blame him for it.

He knows some of what occurred on this estate; it was typed out in the file he was given when he was first assigned as Iwaizumi’s Quartermaster. It’s in this house that Iwaizumi grew up, and where he learned his parents had died in a tragic accident. Oikawa was never made aware of the details surrounding the event, but he knows returning to this house, tied as it is with such a painful memory, can’t be easy for Iwaizumi.

Oikawa bites his lip and looks back at the house, unsure of what to say. There’s nothing he _can_ say, not even to lighten the mood. So instead, he remains silent and pulls up the front drive to the manor’s door.

Iwaizumi steps out of the car as soon as Oikawa cuts the engine. He doesn’t waste time dallying outside of the house, but strides right up to the door and into the house, looking determined to get this over with.

Oikawa trades concerned looks with Kuroo, and then both get out of the car to follow Iwaizumi inside.

He’s struck first by the simple elegance of the house’s architecture. Crown molding along every wall, high vaulted ceilings, a grand staircase filling the entryway. Several chandeliers hang throughout the rooms, though all of them are covered by sheets to keep out the dust.

Almost everything in the house is covered in sheets, actually. It looks like this house hasn’t seen a single living person since Iwaizumi moved out years ago and joined MI6.

Oikawa follows the trail of footprints left in the dust on the floor, finding Iwaizumi standing in what looks to be a large study, or maybe a sitting room. It’s hard to tell with the covered furniture all pushed to the side, against the wall.

“Iwa-chan,” he calls softly, not wanting to startle him. Iwaizumi turns his head briefly, just enough to glance at Oikawa over his shoulder, and then looks back across the room.

He seems lost in his own thoughts. Perhaps the room holds some sort of significant meaning or memory for him, or maybe it’s just the general wonder of being back in this house after years of absence. Oikawa wishes he could climb into Iwaizumi’s mind and see what he’s thinking, to comfort him in some way, because Iwaizumi seems uneasy standing there amid his childhood possessions. Like he’s uncomfortable in his own skin.

Oikawa doesn’t get to think too much about being close to something that holds strong in Iwaizumi’s heart. His eyes switch to one of the doors on the opposite end of the room, immediately going on alert when a man steps through the doorway, shotgun in hand and finger hovering over the trigger.

“You’re still around?”

Oikawa looks at Iwaizumi, seeing him not look guarded, but calm, even more so than he was when he first walked inside the house.

“Well, someone had to take care of this place, didn’t they?”

Iwaizumi smiles. He smiles wide and warm, and Oikawa instantly lowers his guard. So does Kuroo, who was standing nearby with his hand close to his gun.

“Relax you two,” Iwaizumi says. “This is Irihata, the estate keeper. Irihata, this is Oikawa. And Kuroo. Ignore them.”

Oikawa watches Irihata’s mapped face relax into a smile, eyes crinkling around the edges. He seems kind at his center, and if it eases Iwaizumi’s anxiety, he’ll let go of that comment before.

“What brings you here? It’s been years, Hajime.”

“We’ve got a score to settle,” Iwaizumi explains, looking around the room as though he’s picking it apart for more than just childhood nicknacks.

“How can I help?” Irihata asks without skipping a beat.

Oikawa lifts his brows at the response. Most old and brittle looking men wouldn’t jump at the offer to get involved in a fight, especially not when someone like Iwaizumi was asking.

He decides he likes this guy.

“What can we use around here,” Iwaizumi’s eyes continue to search. “Is the gun collection still in tact?”

“Oh, that was sold months ago.” Irihata’s eyes darken, realizing just how serious these next few hours are going to be. “All that’s left is a hunting rifle.” Irihata steps towards a giant oak cabinet, pulling the doors open and picking up the weapon from the top shelf, handing it to Iwaizumi.

“Well, that smarts,” Kuroo clucks his tongue in disappointment, looking over at a dusty cloth hanging across a piece of furniture.

No one in the room makes any moves, all of them quiet as they try to scramble together a plan to barricade this house with defenses, good enough to prepare for the oncoming attack.

“Light fixtures,” Oikawa suddenly blurts, looking up at the ceiling. “We can use the light fixtures to our advantage. Floorboards, too. We should also blackout the house. Seal up every place where light can get in. And...bullets,” Oikawa moves towards a table and pulls his backpack off of his shoulder, unzipping it to pull out all sorts of things. Computer, wires, ammunition, God knows what else.

“And he is…?” Irihata can’t help but smile as he watches Oikawa set up a makeshift lab right on the spot.

“A pain in my ass,” Iwaizumi replies. “Let’s get to work.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

Plastic bags. Glass and nails. Light filaments. Gun powder.

One by one, Oikawa took the supplies and turned each into a weapon that could easily kill with just the flip of a switch.

Six bags sit completed on the table before him, ready to be screwed back into the room’s chandeliers for later use. Twelve more light bulbs sit next to them, each of which Oikawa carefully smashes one by one between two, thick towels with a large mallet.

All around him is quiet, only the crunching of glass and the rustle of plastic to be heard in the room. He focuses on his task, determined to complete it before Iwaizumi and Kuroo, who have left to booby trap the floorboards and barricade the windows, return.

Oikawa has to pull his weight here. He’s not like Iwaizumi, who’s constantly out in the field and doing battle, or even like Kuroo, who used to be a field agent. Oikawa works in the shadows, lending his support to those who wield the weapons, because Oikawa himself was never able to pull the trigger. That can’t be the case now.

He’s scared, if he’s being honest. Knowing what Bokuto is capable of, and knowing the reason behind it, terrifies Oikawa, because he knows, if he were in Bokuto’s place, he wouldn’t stop until he’d brought Kuroo and Iwaizumi to their knees in pure agony. And that means eliminating everything the two of them hold dear.

Oikawa’s not an idiot. He knows he’s got a target on his back, and that scares him out of his mind. But, for the first time in all his years at MI6, he doesn’t want to hide. He’d rather be here with Iwaizumi, facing down this threat, than tucked safely away in headquarters without any way of helping Iwaizumi, or even knowing if he’s alive.

He wonders if Bokuto’s Q had possibly felt the same way.

Oikawa’s drawn out of his thoughts when a blanket drops over his shoulders, heavy and warm and smelling of the pine scent that always lingers in Iwaizumi’s clothes.

“A little cold today, isn’t it?” Oikawa looks behind him and sees Irihata smiling warmly down at him, little crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “It’s all I could find, but I hope it helps.”

Oikawa ducks his head into the folds of the blanket and softly murmurs his gratitude while Irihata pulls up a stool beside him.

“Oikawa, right?” he questions. His smile is like sunshine on a clear, autumn day, warm and calming, and it relaxes Oikawa, who nods in answer.

“Oikawa Tooru.”

“Well, it’s good to meet you, Tooru.”

He pats Oikawa on the shoulder, and then swivels around to start working on the rest of the light bombs. Oikawa almost protests, but Irihata’s hands are steady and careful, handling the materials with skill, so Oikawa keeps his mouth shut and returns to his own work. He can’t say he isn’t glad for the company.

Irihata hums softly as he works, filling the bags as Oikawa continues to break apart the light bulbs. It’s pleasant working with him. Irihata feels almost like a grandfather to Oikawa already, or maybe a favorite uncle.

“How did you and Hajime meet?” he asks as they work. The tone is curious, but lighthearted, without any hidden or fatherly motive. He just genuinely wants to know.

“We work together,” Oikawa answers. “We got paired up a couple of years ago for some assignments. I don’t think he liked me very much at first, but,” Oikawa smashes another bulb and then smiles shyly at Irihata, “I guess things worked out alright in the end.”

“I’d say. I haven’t seen Hajime smile so much since he was a kid.”

Oikawa tilts his head, confused. “What do you mean?”

As far as he’s seen, Iwaizumi hasn’t been smiling that much all day. Only when he met back up with Irihata, and then again when Oikawa accidentally tripped over all of his equipment and nearly face-planted against the floor. Oikawa actually can’t remember a time when Iwaizumi’s smiled so little.

“You’re aware that Hajime’s parents passed away when he was young?”

Oikawa nods and thinks back to the information in Iwaizumi’s file. A climbing accident when Iwaizumi was ten, neither parent survived.

“When I told him, Hajime hid himself for two days in that priest hole, refusing any food or water,” he says while pointing at the inconspicuous door between two large bookcases that Iwaizumi had shown to them in case they needed an escape later.

Oikawa frowns, trying to imagine the scene: a young Iwaizumi stricken with grief, curled up in the dark, damp tunnel between the house and the nearby church, Irihata attempting to coax him out for food and rest, but Iwaizumi, stubborn as always, refusing him.

“It changed him, and not for the better,” Irihata continues. “I don’t think I ever saw him smile from the day I told him of their deaths to the day he left for London. At least not until today.” Irihata beams up at Oikawa. “I think that has a lot to do with you.”

“Me?”

Irihata chuckles softly. “Every time I mention your name, he gets this soft look on his face. Like he can’t help but to smile.” He sets a newly completed bag to the side and grabs another. “Hajime really seems to care for you a lot.”

Hearing this, Oikawa’s lips turn up, a pleased flush crawling up the back of his neck.

It wasn’t like Oikawa has any questions about that fact. He knows Iwaizumi cares for him, at least as a work partner and friend if nothing else, though Oikawa’s pretty sure it goes beyond that. But it’s one thing to conclude this on his own from their interactions, and quite another to hear it confirmed by someone who’s known Iwaizumi almost all of his life.

Somehow, it makes the shared feelings between himself and Iwaizumi more substantial. More significant.

“I care a lot for him too,” Oikawa finally admits.

It’s the first time he’s said as much aloud, in a completely serious way, and just the words alone send his heart racing. The statement locks something into place inside of Oikawa. Something that was always there, always present in his words and actions, but never fully acknowledged until this moment.

He likes Iwaizumi. Pretty much adores him. Maybe even _loves_ him. And Oikawa will do everything in his power to ensure that Iwaizumi makes it through this ordeal alive. That they both do.

Because Iwaizumi Hajime is Oikawa’s entire world. And Oikawa has a feeling he’s Iwaizumi’s world as well.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi sits on a couch in the pitch dark of the living room, no light save for a small lantern on the table set behind him. Tonight would be a good night to stargaze; Iwaizumi remembers seeing what he considered to be almost the entire galaxy as a kid. Way out here, the stars ran for miles, felt closer to his fingertips than any other place.

But tonight, he can’t. He sits inside the house, every crevice offering starlight or moonlight boarded up and sealed tight, nothing but a small candle as a consolation.

Everyone had agreed to take turns keeping watch, but Iwaizumi assured them he probably wouldn’t sleep at all. Irihata and Kuroo retired upstairs, while Oikawa made some kind of makeshift sleep space in his temporary lab inside the dining room.

Iwaizumi would kill for a glass of whiskey right about now, just something to take the edge off while he waits for Bokuto to make his way here. He knows Bokuto will take the bait. Oikawa set up an irresistible trap, plus, Kuroo as far away from MI6 headquarters as possible makes for the perfect opportunity.

Iwaizumi knows Bokuto will probably bring more than enough muscle along. This is practically a suicide mission. He knows that. Kuroo knows that.

Iwaizumi wonders if Oikawa knows that.

Oikawa walked into this with his head held high and what felt like overconfidence. How long can he hold onto that until it hits him? Maybe he does understand, and Iwaizumi is just overthinking.

Iwaizumi knows he spoke too soon when there’s a knock on the wall of the archway.

Oikawa stands there, nothing but the outline of his silhouette illuminated, blanket still draped across his shoulders.

“Can’t sleep?” Iwaizumi whispers, watching Oikawa walk towards him and join him on the couch. As old and dusty as it may be, it’s still a pretty comfortable seat, and warmer than the wood floors.

“Well when death goes from ‘food for thought’ to ‘highly probable’... your mind can’t really shut off,” Oikawa admits, tucking his legs into his chest and folding the blanket around him. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Used to it,” Iwaizumi replies, “but nerves make you forget the small things.”

“Hm.” Oikawa looks down at his kneecaps in thought.

The air is tense; of course it is, they’re sitting ducks until Bokuto shows up.

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi finally says after what feels like five minutes of silence.

Oikawa turns to look at him, not that he can see him all that well in the dark, but the faint light the candle has to offer is enough.

“No matter what happens, I need you to do as I say.”

“Y’know Iwa-chan, if you’re going to be pessimistic about it—”

“ _Oikawa_ ,” Iwaizumi repeats, voice harsher than usual, but it’s filled with concern, not anger. “I know you don’t like guns. So I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. No matter what, do as I say.”

“If you think I’m going to leave you behind, you really are an idiot,” Oikawa combats, shifting on the couch to face Iwaizumi straight on. The candlelight places a soft orange glow on the both of them, and in any other situation it might be considered romantic. But with death sitting on their doorstep, it’s not doing much besides giving them the slightest bit of warmth and light.

Iwaizumi knows he can’t convince Oikawa otherwise. He made such a fuss to get all the way here, and now he plans on sticking around when he’s going to be practically defenseless.

“Why are you so stubborn?” Iwaizumi sighs, “If it were anything else I would argue with you until the sun came up, but with this—”

“I thought about it,” Oikawa murmurs, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “I watched the tapes of Bokuto in that cell. I heard his story.”

Iwaizumi looks at him warily; the things that occurred inside that room weren’t for the faint hearted.

“I couldn’t help but wonder what his Quartermaster must have felt back then.”

Iwaizumi’s shocked expression is a dead giveaway that he didn’t give a second thought to what Bokuto’s _Q_ , Akaashi, must have felt at all. Oikawa smiles sheepishly when he sees Iwaizumi stare at him.

“Quartermasters don’t go into the field. We’re not really meant for it. So, whatever that mission was, Akaashi must have had some kind of gut feeling about it. We’re instinctual like that,” Oikawa shrugs, keeping his eyes trained on the denim of jeans peeking out beneath his fingers.

“If it meant sitting behind a screen and watching your partner die, or going into the field and dying with them…” Oikawa trails off, before he turns from looking down to meeting Iwaizumi’s gaze. “I’d choose death any day.”

Iwaizumi’s stomach leaps and does a flip when Oikawa latches onto his gaze and holds him there. It takes him more effort than necessary to swallow, and it’s difficult for him to find his voice. “Are all you Quartermasters this crazy?”

“Only the ones in love, I think.”

Oikawa’s voice is barely above a whisper as he tilts forward. His smile is shaky at the edges; he’s nervous about so many things. Iwaizumi can see it all over him. He’s scared of being out in the field, knowing that guns make him anxious. He’s scared of dying. He’s scared of not going home to his chaotic lab. He’s scared of confessing.

Iwaizumi reaches a hand forward and secures it around the back of Oikawa’s neck, pressing their foreheads together. “I swear it, I will do everything I can to keep you safe.”

“You already know I’ll do the same for you,” Oikawa breathes. Iwaizumi can feel his heart slamming against his chest, knowing his mind is probably racing just as fast.

“Promise me, you’ll listen, Oikawa, I can’t lose you,” Iwaizumi growls, brows knitting together in frustration. There’s an inkling of relief, between two unconventional confessions and tension so stressed it feels like it may burst any second.

“You won’t,” Oikawa does it again, like he did that day, back at the lab when Iwaizumi let his mind run wild with his fears. He holds his gaze and cups Iwaizumi’s face into his hands, thumbs gliding along cheekbones.

“I need you,” Iwaizumi sighs, hesitating to break all of his restraints thus far. “You were right, back in Macau. I _need_ you.”

“I’m right here.”

It’s a repeat of all the times they wanted to, but never did. Where their lips are so close that all one of them has to do is just fall.

“Promise me, Oikawa.” Iwaizumi is almost begging at this point. “ _Tooru_.”

“Alright,” Oikawa whispers, “Hajime, I promi—”

It’s enough. Iwaizumi considers that to be enough and snaps from his restraints, not knowing how badly he needed his mouth on Oikawa’s until he put it there, feeling his stomach backflip and fill with a million butterflies.

The fingers around Oikawa’s neck curl into his hair and force him closer, because Iwaizumi has decided that he doesn’t need anything else but Oikawa right now. Not even air.

There is probably a plethora of ‘ _I love you’_ going unspoken but heard loud and clear between the gasping for air and losing it all at once. They both can’t say those words to each other right now. They’ll save that for when they make it out of this place. If they make it out.

Everything tied to reality drops into a void save for the truth that Iwaizumi has Oikawa beneath his fingertips, mewling into his mouth as he tilts him back along the length of the couch.

It’s so much better than what imagination could ever offer.

Somehow it’s possible, Oikawa smelling like both lavender and sunshine, even in a dark, dusty room on a cold night. It’s sweet enough to intoxicate him. Iwaizumi snags Oikawa’s bottom lip between his teeth and drags his free hand down the length of Oikawa’s torso, pushing his shirt up and out of the way to lay a hand flat on his stomach.

Liquid fire burns through his veins to every edge of his body when he feels Oikawa’s hands drag hard against his chest, ripping his jacket from his shoulders hurriedly, like this is the first and last time it might ever happen. That thought is too close to being real, yet it only makes the two of them hungrier.

Oikawa tries his best to stifle a moan as Iwaizumi tugs hard on his lip. His jaw drops open, and he swears he can feel Iwaizumi smirk as his tongue glides right in.

Iwaizumi presses his weight down between Oikawa’s hips and breathes him in, letting himself succumb to everything visceral tonight. His one hand in Oikawa’s hair slides it’s way down his throat, following the same path of his other hand until he reaches the seam of Oikawa’s jeans.

Oikawa keens, feeling Iwaizumi’s mouth move down to his throat, placing more than just a few bites, but enough to leave Oikawa riddled in Iwaizumi’s touch, so much that no one would question who left them. Who he belonged to. Who needed him the most.

“ _Hajime—”_

“Off,” Iwaizumi demands, lifting Oikawa’s torso up enough to pull his shirt from over his head, discarding it to the side. The cold air bites at Oikawa’s skin, making him hiss quietly. Iwaizumi apologizes by pulling the blanket from underneath him, and draping it over the both of them instead.

Oikawa chuckles softly, the sound dying out underneath a sharp intake of air when Iwaizumi rolls his hips down hard against Oikawa’s.

Iwaizumi brings his mouth away from Oikawa’s throat, letting go of the skin between his teeth that’s already starting to bruise, and drowning Oikawa in another earth shattering kiss.

His hands work at the button of Oikawa’s pants, prying it apart and leaving it unfastened, like he’s saving it for later, hands roaming back up Oikawa’s torso. Oikawa loops his arms around Iwaizumi’s neck to bring him closer, pressing bodies flush together, and shivers when Iwaizumi’s fingers feather across his arms.

“ _Now_ ,” he gasps, sharp and impatient and all things under insatiably needy, “ _I need you right now.”_

Iwaizumi wants to. God does he want to know what kind of fire Oikawa would set off deep in his bones. He wants to unravel Oikawa until he’s exposed the rawest parts of him, and then piece him back together slowly, watching nothing but pleasure swim in his eyes.

But he can’t. Not like this. He thinks of Reiko, of her death, and of every other person who, at one point, shared her fate because of him, and he just can’t. Iwaizumi fears his curse. Every person he has ever taken to bed has been killed, and while he didn’t hold an attachment to them the way he does for Oikawa, he can’t help but be worried. Especially when they’re not entirely sure they’ll go home after this mission is said and done.

“Not here,” Iwaizumi murmurs.

Oikawa whines in protest, but he doesn’t make any attempt to argue. He knows how Iwaizumi feels about it. He wants to do it right, not on some dinky couch with a death toll hanging over their heads. But somewhere warm, where they can melt into one another until they forget who they are.

“Then after,” he breathes. “Promise me, after all of this.”

“S’ a little cliche for that,” Iwaizumi frowns. Oikawa pulls the blanket over their heads and tilts upward, grabbing Iwaizumi’s lips in a chaste kiss.

“All of this is cliche.”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes and tilts forward. “I’m sorry. I can’t give you everything, not yet. But… I promise,” he hesitates, though Oikawa knows all of Iwaizumi’s promises are kept.

With that in mind, Oikawa moves his hands from around Iwaizumi’s neck and pulls for his shirt to come off. He rakes blunt nails down the expanse of his chest, stopping short when he passes over Iwaizumi’s scar. His fingertips trace lightly across the warped skin, eyes following down the path of his hands. He can’t really make it all out in the dark, tucked underneath thick fabric, but his hands are enough.

He presses his lips gently over the scar, too gentle to be anything other than thankful. Iwaizumi notices just how easy it is for him to read Oikawa now. The kiss is something of thanks, for the fact that he’s still here. A prayer, that if he made it past this, Skyfall will be the same.

It’s a fleeting moment, the sentiment lingering but shifting back into yearning when Oikawa’s fingers continue to descend until they reach the seam of his pants. He hardly bothers to get the button unfastened before he slips his hand underneath the fabric.

“Christ,” Iwaizumi snaps, jolting at the touch sending electricity flashing across his body. His eyes roll shut as Oikawa’s mouth glides along his jaw, whispering sweet nothings when his teeth and tongue aren’t marking his throat.

Iwaizumi lets pleasure coil in the pit of his stomach as his hips twitch at the mercy of Oikawa’s hand. Before he loses what little restraint he has left, he stops his hands from mapping themselves across Oikawa’s body and brings them down to pull his jeans open, wriggling them off his hips enough to give Oikawa more room to move.

“Eager,” Oikawa whispers against the shell of his ear.

“You’re one to talk,” Iwaizumi hums.

When he decides to fight back, he brings his hands upward across Oikawa’s chest, pressing thumbs down over Oikawa’s nipples. The noise that jumps out involuntarily from Oikawa tells Iwaizumi he’s sensitive. Extremely sensitive, in all the right places.

Iwaizumi slants his mouth across Oikawa’s again, leaving one thumb to roll over a pink bud while the other returns to Oikawa’s unfastened jeans, feeling the shorts beneath them tented and damp. Oikawa twitches beneath his hand before he barely pulls the fabric back.

“Hajime—”

“Are you trying to wake the house up?” Iwaizumi glares at him, partially joking. It’s not all bad, knowing that he can excite Oikawa until he’s loud enough to be heard from a good distance. It also gives him reason to keep their mouths together.

Iwaizumi lifts Oikawa’s hips to roll his jeans down far enough to let his cock spring free, quickly moving Oikawa’s hand from his own and gliding the two together in his palm.

“Wait—!”

“Nope,” Iwaizumi hungrily grabs Oikawa into a kiss, his free hand pinning both of Oikawa’s above their heads. He presses their hips down and together, hand tightening around both of them enough to incite heat and pleasure. Iwaizumi swallows his moan as Oikawa rolls upwards into his touch, shuddering at the feel of Iwaizumi all over him.

Iwaizumi starts slow, hand working over their cocks in rhythm with the way their hips meet, palm growing slick the more he moves. The sense of urgency they both had at first has now diluted into dragging it out as long as they can, at least this moment right here, this feeling that both of them have been craving for God knows how long.

The fire that started slow is now spreading rapidly across Iwaizumi’s skin, feeling Oikawa’s shaft pulse and twitch against his own, mouth press hot air against his own, tremors shaking his entire body head to toe and glazing his eyes over with a lust only he can ignite in him.

“Seriously… _Hajime_ , I’m not going to—”

“That’s fine,” Iwaizumi whispers, breath warm against his cheek. “I’ve got you.”

Beautiful. Oikawa is beautiful, as Iwaizumi draws him closer to his orgasm and unravels him, watching his expression shift from tense to desperate against soft candlelight. Iwaizumi wishes he could see it all right now: Oikawa’s lips kissed red, cheeks flushed, hair a tousled mess, so many love bites in reds and purples across his skin he could make a constellation.

Iwaizumi bites down on Oikawa’s lip instead of his own, before his hips jerk forward and he loses control.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses sharply, orgasm having snuck up on him while he got himself lost in Oikawa. It didn’t just wash over him, warm and slow and sweet. It sucked the air out of his lungs and launched him into the curve of the earth, spotting his vision and making his head spin.

His hips stutter and twitch against his hand, and hardly a moment passes before Oikawa is following him, his cry muffled against his own hand instead of Iwaizumi’s mouth, the latter too busy blinking stars from behind his eyes as he tucks into the crook of Oikawa’s neck.

Hot white sticks to their skin and sensitivities skyrocket when the euphoric feeling of floating starts to wane and the afterglow kicks in.

Oikawa stares up at the ceiling, chest heaving and clawing for air, a hand draped across Iwaizumi’s broad back. And then, he laughs. Quietly, pulling the blanket up over their heads and trying his hardest to keep his voice down. Iwaizumi doesn’t need to ask him to understand.

For a moment, they felt like two high schoolers in their first time. The confession came before everything else. Neither of them lasted as long as they could because raw emotion overpowered stamina.

“Say, Haj—”

“Make one smart remark and I will torture you,” Iwaizumi cuts him off. Oikawa would be the type to make some smart ass comment about Iwaizumi coming first. But with his hand still dangerously close to Oikawa’s cock, still post-orgasm sensitive, Oikawa should think twice.

“Are we going to continue to be this cliche?”

“God, I hope not,” Iwaizumi sighs, and uses the strength in his arms to push himself off of Oikawa, looking around for something to clean themselves off with.

They really should have thought about doing this before they realized that nothing was within reach but a cloth furniture cover.

“Irihata-san would kill us,” Oikawa snickers as Iwaizumi uses the corner of it to scrape at their skin.

“This place just got turned into a fortress. I don’t think he’ll care about some damn chair cover.”

“Fair enough,” Oikawa wriggles his jeans back into place, pulling clothes back on and tucking harder into the blanket to combat the peak of the cold night.

Their little romp was enough of a distraction that sleep falls heavy over his eyes.

Iwaizumi tilts back on the couch and invites Oikawa to curl against him, resting his head on his chest and covering them both with the blanket.

“Tired now?”

“Mhm,” Oikawa mumbles sleepily. “You?”

“A little,” Iwaizumi shrugs, “Get some rest.” He brings one hand up to play with Oikawa’s hair.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa yawns. “You owe me.”

“I _owe_ you?”

“Every single thing I’ve given you, you’ve lost. So do me a favor…” Oikawa sniffs, nuzzling his face into the crook of Iwaizumi’s neck.

“What is it?”

“Don’t lose me.”

Iwaizumi presses a kiss against Oikawa’s temple, fingers lazily curling through his hair and massaging across his scalp.

“Idiot… if there’s one promise I can give you. It’s that I’m not letting go.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

“Fucking hell,” Iwaizumi hisses, seeing the line of armed men prowling towards the house. There are more of them than he expected, and all of them look loaded down with weaponry and ammo. Their firepower outweighs that of Iwaizumi’s group, that’s for sure, and it makes his stomach clench uncomfortably to actually see the odds stacked against them.

He rips away from the crack in the boards against the window to take a look around the house, eyes scanning for all of the traps they’ve set.

Kuroo and Irihata stand by the doorway, Irihata with a shotgun at the ready, Kuroo with dual pistols and crouched near the oak cabinet.

“Is it bad out there?” Oikawa asks, breaking the silence.

Iwaizumi’s eyes linger on him, noticing the black metal pressed between his palms. The grip is awkward and uncomfortable, but Oikawa hasn’t set the damn thing down since Iwaizumi placed it there, reminding him that all he had to do was point, shoot, and try to keep his eyes open.

“There’s a lot of them. More than I thought. Bokuto is probably expecting us to have a trick up our sleeve.”

“Tch, and the one time we _don’t_ ,” Kuroo smiles.

Iwaizumi nods and peeks back through the crack. “If things get too rough, you all know where the escape route is. Don’t let them find it.”

“What are you going to do?” Oikawa looks at him warily. Iwaizumi made it sound like he wouldn’t be going with them.

“Anything I can to get this over and done with,” Iwaizumi replies honestly. He doesn’t have some sort of elaborate plan. None of them do. With limited resources and time, they made do with what they had—which wasn’t much—and waited for their moment to strike.

“Oikawa, stay close to Irihata. That sawed off shotgun packs a punch, make sure you’re on the right side of it.”

“Roger,” Oikawa darts across the length of the room to join Irihata.

“Is the car ready?” Iwaizumi watches as the line of men outside go from being a safe distance away, to dangerously close.

“Just say when,” Oikawa calls from behind.

Kuroo advances forward to stay near Iwaizumi, a hand tight on his gun and double checking to make sure his ammunition is full. “If we get out of this, I’m going to suspend you.”

“Of course you will,” Iwaizumi scoffs, “detention for saving your life. That’s rich.”

“Considering the way your skin looks, I’d have thought you would welcome it,” Kuroo says evenly, watching Iwaizumi mash his lips into a thin line and remain silent.

Neither he nor Oikawa thought too much about the consequences of leaving visible hickeys until they both got up the next day, and both Irihata and Kuroo stared at the two of them like they were irresponsible children who couldn’t have been more obvious.

“If we don’t, however,” Kuroo says quietly.

“Don’t get all sappy now. Even if this goes wrong, we’re still friends.”

Kuroo freezes, hand still over the gun. “What?”

“Well, we’re friends. Aren’t we?”

Kuroo stares at him for what feels like a long while, before he smiles and braces himself for the first wave of the attack. “There’s no way in hell I’d be friends with you.” He cocks his gun and takes a step backwards, away from the door. “And you told me not to get sappy.”

Iwaizumi takes a step away from the windows as well when he sees the enemy within range.

“Oikawa, on my mark,” he whispers.

Oikawa follows him on a five count, before he jams his finger down on the button.

Bullets rain down from the two guns of the car to the ground just outside the house, where their enemies are standing. Shouts fill the air, and Iwaizumi looks back out the small crack to see half of the men retreating to the area behind the car, where the guns can’t hit them. The other half run straight towards the door, and Iwaizumi signals to the others, letting them know danger is coming.

Only moments later, there’s a small explosion and the front door swings wide open. Irihata gets the first hit, shooting two of them men point blank right as they come through the door. Kuroo and Iwaizumi take out the rest.

Their bodies pile up near the door. Iwaizumi checks them quickly, but none of them are Bokuto, not that he expected them to be.

The fight isn’t over yet, however. The other half of Bokuto’s group is still outside, inching cautiously towards the house with guns raised. Iwaizumi knows they won’t be able to catch the men off guard like they did with the others. They’ll have to retreat back into the house and rely on all their traps.

“Spread out. Just like we planned,” he tells the others, who all nod and start moving away. Iwaizumi catches Oikawa’s wrist as he passes by and pulls Oikawa close. “Go to the dining room and stay as close to the priest hole as possible. I want you out of here if things start getting too bad.”

“But Iwa—”

“You promised me,” Iwaizumi reminds him.

His hand is painfully tight around Oikawa’s arm, knuckles white, shaking just the slightest bit. He’s not sure what his face looks like to Oikawa, but it must be in a similar state, making clear his desperation for Oikawa to listen to him just this once.

He needs Oikawa safe. He can’t focus without knowing Oikawa has an escape route, and that he’ll actually take it before he lets himself get killed.

A frown pulls at Oikawa’s lips. He’s not happy to have that promise brought back up, not happy about having to honor it, but at least he doesn’t argue against it.

“Fine,” he concedes, and then twists his arm in Iwaizumi’s hand to be able to hold onto Iwaizumi’s wrist as well. His grip is nearly bruising. “But you remember your promise as well.”

Iwaizumi grins. “Of course. Just who do you think I am?”

They stare at each other, silent words of devotion and need passing between them, and then Oikawa is gone, slipping through the house to take refuge in the dining room.

Iwaizumi glances out the window once more. The men are spread out, approaching the house from all angles, but still a cautious distance away for the moment. It’s enough to allow Iwaizumi to disappear into the house, grabbing one of the dead men’s guns as he goes. Much better than a hunting rifle.

He strides through the entranceway to the back of the manor and takes position in a room right near the back door, which is surrounded by various mirrors. Outside, he can hear the shouts of Bokuto’s men as they come closer. He readies his gun and watches the door carefully.

As two men stumble inside, Iwaizumi steps out, just far enough for the mirrors to pick up his reflection. One of them men sees him in the glass and shoots, image shattering much to the surprise of both. Iwaizumi shoots them down before they fully realize what happened.

There are shots from one side of the house, where Kuroo and Irihata are. And then Iwaizumi hears the explosion of the dining room lights and the pained cries of two unknown men. At least Oikawa seems to be getting through alright for the moment. That knowledge sets Iwaizumi slightly at ease.

More shots come from Kuroo’s side of the house, and Iwaizumi runs towards them. He slides through the study and rushes into a long sitting room, where Kuroo is being held behind a wall by a barrage of gunfire. A bullet grazes his arm and makes him drop one of his pistols, and then Iwaizumi jumps into the fray, mowing the three gunmen down with a steady stream of bullets.

“You hurt?” he asks Kuroo, looking at the bleeding wound on his arm. Kuroo laughs weakly.

“It’s just a scratch. Nothing I can’t deal with.”

He tears off a strip of his shirt and expertly wraps it around his arm, tight enough to stay the bleeding for a bit. It’ll have to last.

There’s more gunfire, and then another one of Bokuto’s henchmen falls into the room, dead. Irihata steps over the body.

“That’s the last of them.”

“For now.” Iwaizumi grimaces. He kicks over one of the bodies to examine the face and growls in frustration. “He’s not here.”

This was just the first wave of attack, apparently. A way to flush Iwaizumi and Kuroo out and make them use all their tricks. And it worked. They only have some of the booby trapped floorboards left, and that won’t be enough to take care of Bokuto.

He’s looking about the room, trying to figure out what the former agent is planning and how to combat it, when he hears the distinctive whir of helicopter blades over the faint strains of music. It gets closer, volume picking up, and Iwaizumi makes out the lyrics from over the helicopter’s noise, recognizing the song.

He rushes over to the window and snorts. Of course Bokuto would use “Boom, Boom.” Of course he would. He’s taunting Iwaizumi and Kuroo, practically begging them to come out and play, and just where did Bokuto manage to pick up an armed helicopter in the first place? How wide did his connections and influence spread?

He backs away from the window and touches Kuroo’s shoulder. “You need to go,” he tells them. “Use the tunnel and get out of here.”

They don’t hesitate and make their retreat. Just in time too.

The music cuts out, and Iwaizumi has barely any warning before Bokuto’s men begin firing upon the house, bullets cutting through the walls with little trouble. Iwaizumi bolts from the room and sprints down the hallways while the gunfire chases at his heels, right into the dining room where Kuroo and Irihata have taken refuge behind the oak cabinet.

Iwaizumi looks around the room and swears loudly.

The door to the tunnel is closed, and Oikawa is nowhere in sight, even though Iwaizumi had told him to stick near the priest hole. He desperately tries to believe that Oikawa picked up on the trouble and already made his way through the passage, but Iwaizumi knows him better. Oikawa will never willingly leave Iwaizumi in this house until Iwaizumi forces him to.

There’s a pause in the gunfire, and Kuroo and Irihata use that time to make their escape. Iwaizumi shuts the door behind them.

He hears people on the ground, coming towards the house, and knows he’s about to be overwhelmed by their force. He has to make sure they take just as much damage as him before that happens. And where is Oikawa?

Two voices echo through the house, coming from the kitchen just down the hall. They’re snooping the place out, looking for Iwaizumi and Kuroo, and it won’t be long before they find him.

He takes stock of the situation: the gun in his hands, the lack of ammo in his pockets, the two floorboards prepared to blow when hit just right. And Oikawa, still missing in action.

That last one makes him more frantic that he cares to admit.

He slips into the hallway and tries to draw their attention, preparing to face them head on. As long as Iwaizumi keeps their attention on him, then they won’t go looking for Oikawa. That’s all Iwaizumi needs.

He’s spotted, and the men start prowling towards him, breaking into a chase when Iwaizumi starts running. He leads them down the hall, leaping over the booby trapped floorboard, and then turns to shoot it right as the first henchman comes upon it.

The floorboard blows up and sends the man flying. His neck snaps against the wall he’s thrown into, and he falls to the ground, dead.

The other man is luckier and misses the blast. Only small pieces of wooden shrapnel hit him, cutting against his face, but leaving no other harm. Iwaizumi scowls and keeps running.

He slides into the entryway and darts around the staircase with the man hot on his heels.

Where to go? Where to go? His mind rushes through the catalogue of rooms, trying to decide which is the most advantageous to his fight. A bullet hits the wall beside him. Iwaizumi dodges into hallway, firing behind him at the same time.

He hopes Oikawa is somewhere out of the way, where Iwaizumi won’t run into him. He doesn’t want to bring Oikawa into this fight.

Another shot, and Iwaizumi stumbles. It’s enough hesitation for the henchman to barrel straight into Iwaizumi, knocking the gun from his hand. It hits the floor and slides across the room, out of Iwaizumi’s reach.

Iwaizumi spins around and punches the man in his gut. He hunches over and Iwaizumi grabs at his gun. The man isn’t as stunned as Iwaizumi had hoped for and holds fast to his weapon, and it soon turns into a struggle for control.

Iwaizumi gives a strong tug, momentum swinging the man around, one hand slipping from the weapon. He slaps it back on seconds later, and then lifts a foot to kick Iwaizumi in the stomach. The force winds him, his grip weakens, and the henchman yanks the gun from his hands, sending Iwaizumi falling to the floor.

He rolls to the side and regains his footing, but it’s too late. The gun is already trained on him, finger curled around the trigger, ready to shoot him down. Iwaizumi prepares to dodge.

A gun fires, loud and powerful, and Iwaizumi jumps to the side.

The henchman drops to the floor. Blood stains his back, seeping through his jacket, right over where his heart would be. It’s a perfect shot.

“Drop something?” Oikawa asks, kicking the gun Iwaizumi had lost back across the room towards him.

Iwaizumi stares at him in shock.

“You… you just…”

He can’t get the words out. Oikawa lowers his gun, steady and unfazed, not what Iwaizumi had expected from Oikawa at all.

He wonders if he maybe underestimated his Quartermaster.

“No time for thanks, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says, reaching towards him with a single hand and hauling Iwaizumi to his feet. “Things out there are getting nasty.”

“You should have already left. You promised that you’d leave if things got bad.”

Oikawa tilts his head and smiles. “But then who’d be here to save your ass?”

Iwaizumi’s about to respond— to either chide or kiss Oikawa, he isn’t quite sure— when a grenade crashes through the window and rolls across the floor. Iwaizumi grabs Oikawa’s arm and drags him from the room, right before it explodes and bursts into flames.

There’s another grenade, and Iwaizumi just keeps running, pulling Oikawa along with him as his feet carry him to the dining room. There’s only one thing on his mind, and that’s to get Oikawa out of this house before Bokuto blows it completely to pieces.

He doesn’t stop once he reaches the room, merely forces Oikawa ahead of him and pushes him to the priest hole. Oikawa goes without a fuss. He knows it isn’t the time to argue.

“Come with me,” is the only thing Oikawa voices when Iwaizumi forces him into the tunnel. His expression is wide and terrified, hands reaching for Iwaizumi, and Iwaizumi presses his lips desperately to the palm of Oikawa’s hand.

His skin is smooth, unblemished by scars and years of handling weapons the way Iwaizumi’s are. Iwaizumi is determined to keep them that way. He inhales the scent of lavender, committing it to memory, as he presses Oikawa’s hand to his cheek.

“Soon,” he promises, even though everything inside of him is screaming to follow. But he has one last thing to do. One last attempt to finish this before Bokuto corners them.

Oikawa nods and steps back, silent, his eyes glued to Iwaizumi until the door to the tunnel shuts.

Iwaizumi takes a deep breath, and then gets to work. The flames in the house are spreading, growing larger. Iwaizumi has a limited time to get this done.

He rushes into the kitchen and grabs the two propane tanks and explosives he’d found while boarding up windows the day before. The flames are nearly at them, and so Iwaizumi drags them back into the dining room, if only to give himself a little more time.

It’s his last resort, because he knows by doing this he’s sentenced this house and all its memories to complete destruction. Part of him is glad for that, ready to be rid of the painful reminders, but the other part, the larger part, mourns the loss of what he considers his last tie to his parents.

Then he thinks of Oikawa, and his need to protect the Quartermaster from the threat just outside his walls. He sets the explosives on the propane tanks, lights the fuse, and sprints into the priest hole.

The explosion hits when he’s halfway through. He ducks into a small crevice to avoid the flames.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Oikawa is halfway across the field to the church when the Skyfall manor bursts apart.

The force of the explosion makes him stumble, even as far away as he is, and he looks back to see the house bright with huge, orange flames. Burning debris flutters to the ground. From where Oikawa stands, they look almost like shooting stars, enough so that Oikawa pauses to make a wish.

He wants Iwaizumi to have made it out alright.

He slaps a hand over his mouth, muffling the broken cry trying to tear out of his throat.

This isn’t the time for that. He has to believe that Iwaizumi got out, that he avoided the explosion, that he’ll be alright. Iwaizumi told him he’d come. He said he’d be following after Oikawa soon. Oikawa has to trust in that.

He turns his back on the fire, unable to bear the sight of it any longer, and looks towards the church. He can only see the faintest of outlines against the night sky, which is probably for the best because it means Bokuto will never see it from where he is. If Bokuto is still alive.

Suddenly, light flashes through the window, like a beacon in a storm.

Oikawa staggers forward, trembling hand moving from his hand to his belt, where he clipped the handgun Iwaizumi forced on him earlier that night. Panic and dread twist together inside of him and rob him of air. He gasps for breath around the heavy knot that’s formed in his throat.

The light has to be Irihata. Kuroo knows better than to give away their position like that when they still don’t know if Bokuto is alive or dead. Oikawa can see it easily from where he is. He’s sure that Bokuto can see it as well.

It’s a target in the black night, a waste of the escape Iwaizumi created for them, and they don’t even realize.

Oikawa pulls out his gun, still heavy with the weight of the life he ended earlier, and races across the field, entire being set on reaching that chapel.

Irihata and Kuroo need to be warned. To be moved into a new safe area, if at all possible. And, with Iwaizumi currently out of the picture, the task of protecting them falls heavily onto Oikawa’s shoulders.

He has to get across this field, has to reach the chapel, has to get to Kuroo.

Before Bokuto can.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi pulls himself from the tunnel into the open air, gasping for breath.

He’s a good bit away from the house, but he can still feel the heat of the flames across his back and scalp. He doesn’t dare turn his head, though. Doesn’t want to see his childhood home eaten up by flames, despite being the one that helped set them.

He takes deep breaths and looks out across the land before him. Oikawa’s nowhere in sight, to his relief. Hopefully that means he’s safe in the chapel with Kuroo and Irihata, or at least almost there.

Iwaizumi needs to start heading that way too. He has little hope that the explosion he set actually managed to take care of Bokuto and his henchmen, and Iwaizumi knows he’ll soon be searching the area for where Iwaizumi and Kuroo scurried off to. Bokuto knows better than to believe they’d let themselves get blown up inside of the house. He’ll latch on to the first thing in sight, going place by place and burning them all to the ground until he’s sure Iwaizumi and Kuroo are dead, and the chapel is a prime target. Especially with the light flashing through the window.

Iwaizumi pulls himself up and starts running in the direction of the church. He needs to get there first and warn the others, prepare for the inevitable arrival of Bokuto while they still can.

The shortest way to the church involves crossing the edge of a frozen lake, and he heads towards it, despite his reservations. Will the ice be able to hold him this early into winter? Does Iwaizumi have the time to go around?

He skids to a stop at the edge of the lake. Before him is only ice, and solid ground is too far away for Iwaizumi to consider that path. He needs to get to the chapel now.

Cautiously, he places a foot on the ice and lowers his weight onto it. It cracks, but doesn’t break. It’s not entirely stable but it’s good enough for Iwaizumi, who needs to get across as quickly as possible. He pulls his other foot onto the ice, stabilizes his weight, and then takes off running again.

The ice in the middle of the lake is more solid and stops cracking with every step. It makes him more confident to run faster, bringing the church closer into his sight. He’s nearly there. He can even make out the gravestones and a figure sprinting with all their might towards the door. He prays to God it’s Oikawa and not Bokuto or one of his henchmen.

There are several shots, bullets hitting the ice not too far away, and Iwaizumi immediately stops, sliding across the ice a few inches until he’s at a standstill.

He looks up and sees Bokuto standing on the shore a few meters away. He looks a mess. His erratic, white hair is drooping and sticking out every which way while blood and ash are smeared across his cheeks. In his hand, he limply holds a pistol, almost too tired to hang on to it correctly.

“You just won’t die, will you,” he sighs.

There’s no anger on his face, only exhaustion, and he regards Iwaizumi as if the two are old friends. Kindred spirits due to their unfortunate love for their Quartermasters.

One of Bokuto’s henchmen comes up beside Iwaizumi, armed with a heavy rifle and plenty of ammo. There’s no chance of Iwaizumi going anywhere while Bokuto speaks, unless it’s to an early grave.

“Aren’t you tired, Hajime?” Bokuto asks, flinging out an arm towards the church. “Aren’t you fed up with following his orders? Never getting the one thing you actually want?”

The hand drops and Bokuto tilts his head to the side, white hair falling over his dull, gold eyes. For the first time, Bokuto doesn’t look like the madman Iwaizumi knows he is, but rather just a broken man, too tired to keep on existing.

“Why do you even bother? You’re nothing special. He’s like a hunter. He’ll shoot you down before you have a chance to defend yourself.”

“He already did,” Iwaizumi responds. “But sentiment is a dangerous thing for an agent. You already know this.”

“As do you. With your precious Q. Your _Tooru._ ” He laughs, fingers twitching around the gun, itching to pull the trigger. The orange light of the fire flickers wildly across his face, mouth stretched wide into a manic grin. “He’s up there with Tetsu, isn’t he? Should I give him a goodbye kiss for you before I kill him?”

He starts laughing again, head thrown back, arms swinging loosely at his side. Iwaizumi looks down at the ice beneath his feet, then at the gun the man beside him holds.

It’s his only chance at escape.

He grabs the gun and shoots at the ice all around him, breaking it and dropping both himself and the henchman into the freezing water below. They sink quickly, weighed down as they are with clothes and the gun, which they both lose hold of as they grapple in the water.

The man struggles for purchase on Iwaizumi, wrapping his arms around Iwaizumi’s chest and neck in an attempt to force the air from him and let him drown. Iwaizumi twists and shoves and breaks himself from the man’s hold, and then pushes him down, managing to catch the man’s neck in the bend of his knee.

Iwaizumi grabs his ankle and squeezes. He squeezes and squeezes and squeezes his leg around the henchman’s neck in a far more effective chokehold than what he’d had Iwaizumi in just moments before. The man claws desperately at Iwaizumi’s leg, but to no avail. Iwaizumi doesn’t let up. Not until he sees the steady stream of bubbles flow out from the guy’s mouth, taking all of his oxygen with them.

Iwaizumi gives one last squeeze, meant to twist the henchman’s head, and sees his neck snap. Then he lets go.

When he looks up, he realizes he can no longer see the hole he had created in the ice. He’s too deep in the water, with too little light, and he doesn’t have the time or oxygen supply to just swim up and hope he’ll come across it. Not if he has another option.

He looks down at the body of the henchman floating away from him. His eyes fall on something hooked to his belt, and Iwaizumi swims towards the man. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be a rocket flare. Exactly what Iwaizumi needs.

He grabs it and quickly hits the base, setting off a chain reaction inside the tube. A bright flare shoots out seconds later and streaks toward the ice. It illuminates the surface so brightly that Iwaizumi can meters and meters of thick ice.

And, along with it, a small patch of water leading back to the world above.

  
  


* * *

 

 

“Turn off the light,” Oikawa demands breathlessly as he bounds into the chapel.

Kuroo, sitting in one of the pews, jumps and snaps his head around to look at Oikawa, who is heaving for breath against the door frame.

The lantern sits up on the pulpit, shining brightly for all the world to see. For Bokuto to see. Oikawa pushes himself from the wall and stumbles his way up to the front, blowing the light out with a large puff of air so that only the far-off flames illuminate the old room, just as Irihata returns from one of the side hallways.

“What is going on?” he asks, confused.

Oikawa shakes his head, leaning heavily against the pulpit. He isn’t used to all of this running around. That was always Iwaizumi’s forte.

“I could see that light from a mile away. Bokuto probably could too,” Oikawa gasps. His legs are shaking, his chest burning, but Oikawa can’t think about that right now. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

The explanation comes too late as the three hear the door clatter open and footsteps fill the hall. Bokuto comes into sight only moments later, and Oikawa feels his blood freeze. The man is even more intimidating in person, gold eyes cutting straight through Oikawa’s body down to his very soul. He can only breathe again when Bokuto turns his gaze away to grin at Kuroo instead.

“Honey, I’m home,” he sings. A shiver races down Oikawa’s spine.

He doesn’t think much about it, just feels his body move automatically to point the pistol in his hands straight at Bokuto. But he’s shaking far too much to actually pull the trigger. He stands trembling, vulnerable, frightened out of his wits, but knowing he can’t let Bokuto hurt Kuroo. Or get away.

Bokuto laughs loudly. “A Quartermaster with a gun. Now that’s a sight you don’t see every day.” There’s a crazed gleam in his eyes as he raises his own gun and points it, not at Oikawa, but at Kuroo. As though daring Oikawa to try and stop him. “My Keiji was the same way.”

Not that it’s news to Oikawa, but just hearing the endearment in Bokuto’s voice, even as he looks so devoid of emotion, makes his hands tremble even harder around the gun.

Oikawa finally has the slightest understanding of what Iwaizumi feared so much after coming face to face with this guy. Is this what he would turn into if he lost Oikawa? Would Oikawa turn into this if he lost Iwaizumi?

Agents are treated like heroes. But there’s a fine line between heroes and villains. They think the same, save for whether or not they want to dispose of humanity, or salvage it a little while longer.

It’s frightening to see the other side so close to him. Oikawa feels his lungs tighten, the air dying out faster than he can replace it.

“Look at you, like a newborn fawn,” Bokuto clucks his tongue, gun still pointed at Kuroo, “You and Hajime must be new to this, I bet. See, Keiji and I were together for _years_. We practically became one, y’know?”

Oikawa can’t peel his eyes away from Bokuto’s amber ones. He tries hard to force himself to relax by organizing his thoughts. Starting with why Kuroo and Irihata both haven’t moved.

Right, how could they? Bokuto’s reflexes are fast, sharp. If either of them made any motion, he would pull the trigger before someone else had time to react. And with Oikawa practically helpless even with a weapon in his hands, they’re sitting ducks.

Which means they have to stall.

Oikawa knows Bokuto is near desperate at this point, only out for Kuroo’s blood as retribution. But he wouldn’t hesitate to discard the others in the room just for the hell of it.

“Keiji,” Oikawa murmurs, “Akaashi, Keiji, was it? Your Quartermaster?”

Bokuto stays silent, tilting his head just slightly. It means Oikawa can continue.

“Why’d you do it?” Oikawa asks, hands still shivering over his trigger. “Let him...into the field,” he tries his best to word it as carefully as he can with his head spiraling through a million things, almost all of them negative.

“You should know the answer to that,” Bokuto snaps, sounding almost disappointed, “the same reason you walked into this suicide mission. You can say it out loud, Tooru. _Love_.”

Bokuto stares at Oikawa, as if he’s measuring him, breaking him down and deciding what way he can immobilize him.

“Well, even if your precious Hajime makes it out of that ice, he’ll probably die of hypothermia before he gets anywhere far,” Bokuto states it like he’s just read the local news, like it’s completely insignificant. “So much for all that _love_.”

Bokuto breaks his attention from Oikawa, seemingly no longer worried about the gun pointed at him. He’s right; Oikawa is too scared and too riddled with thoughts to pull the trigger. He can’t bring himself to add any more weight on his shoulders. The fight back at the house already had him pulled apart. Hearing about Iwaizumi has him on his knees, guilt swirling nausea into the pit of his stomach, spotting his vision, sweat prickling his skin.

Why was Iwaizumi near ice? What had Bokuto done to him?

Oikawa had taken up this mission with more confidence than doubt that he would bring Iwaizumi home alive. He had also sworn to himself, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, that if Iwaizumi didn’t make it, neither did he.

He shouldn’t believe Bokuto, knowing that he would press down on Oikawa’s weakness until he broke, but Bokuto isn’t the kind of guy to lie. Which means something happened out there that may not bring Iwaizumi back to him.

He failed.

Oikawa feels the room spin as his hope dwindles; his mind races to find Iwaizumi’s scent—a mixture of whiskey and pine—and he clings to it like it’s the only thing keeping him from collapsing.

He’s too stiff to lower the gun, anger and fear drowning himself so fast that he can’t help but go numb, and all he can do is watch Bokuto walk towards Kuroo. He looks weak, covered in sweat, grime, blood, leaning against the backrest of the pew. He’s tired, he probably can’t even look at Bokuto straight without seeing three of him.

Kuroo’s resistance is minimal as Bokuto lifts him from his seat and brings him into something of a hug, placing his gun in Kuroo’s hand.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, hearing Kuroo whimper from the bullet wound.

Oikawa watches Kuroo’s last bit of defense crumble without any kind of fight. It looks like he’s almost embracing Bokuto’s gentleness, head slumped on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, Tetsu,” Bokuto sighs, his arms folding around Kuroo. “We’ll do this together. Let’s do this together.”

His hand entwines with Kuroo’s around the grip of the gun, slowly raising their arms to place the barrel against Kuroo’s temple.

“Do something for me, Tetsu,” Bokuto murmurs, a smile in his voice, his eyes glassy with tears that seem filled with both relief and sentimentality.

Oikawa helplessly watches them, and from what it looks like, Bokuto had been saving the last of his humanity for this moment. To go out with a bang, flashy, but with the one person besides Akaashi that he valued the most.

Bokuto probably wanted to hate Kuroo, maybe a part of him does. But right now, in the dim light of the church with nothing left but raw honesty, hatred seems almost nonexistent.

“Before we do this…” Bokuto almost sounds like he’s going to cry. “Say my name.”

The one word Kuroo would never repeat because of how bitter his tongue felt afterwards. How the guilt ate him alive for weeks at even the thought of his name.

Bokuto had done it. Stripping Kuroo of everything he holds dear, leaving him on the edge between life and death, in a middle point where adrenaline turns sweet in his blood and he would willingly do anything to keep that feeling from disappearing. Even if that meant pulling the trigger.

“I guess it’s too late for me to apologize,” Kuroo wheezes. If he had any energy left, he might be trembling around the gun, but both of their hands are linked tight and steady. “You’ve really outdone yourself, Koutarou.”

Oikawa wants to squeeze his eyes shut. He’s not sure he could take any more death. It feels wrong, like this moment holds too much intimacy for anyone else to be around. But Oikawa also feels like he can’t look away, because someone needs to see Kuroo in his final moments. Complete submission painted across his face, tears spilling onto Bokuto’s shoulder, teeth grit and jaw clenched tight in fear.

“That’s my Tetsu,” Bokuto whispers, and he curls a hand around the back of Kuroo’s neck, which must have been something between them, because Kuroo heaves a broken sob as soon as he does.

Oikawa can’t watch anymore. It’s too intimate, too painful. He shouldn’t be here to witness this. His eyes close and he turns his face away, waiting for the moment when Kuroo pulls the trigger and the shot echoes through the chapel.

Instead, there’s a dull thud, and Bokuto’s sudden cry of pain.

Kuroo heaves in a great breath, and something clatters to the floor. Oikawa’s eyes shoot open and snap over to see Kuroo clutching to one of the pews for support, the gun lying harmlessly on the floor, and Bokuto slumped over, a large knife sticking out from his back.

Iwaizumi walks out from the shadows and stands over Bokuto. He’s completely soaked, dripping water onto the floor, but he’s never looked as confident in the past month as he does right now.

Oikawa drops his gun, shocked, and feels his legs collapse from under him.

“I guess this makes me the hunter,” Iwaizumi mutters. There’s pity in his eyes as he stares down at Bokuto, who glares back up at him before falling to the ground.

His fingers twitch— once, twice— and then go still. In the embrace of death, a sort of tranquility falls over his expression, finally bringing rest to a man so worn out by the cruelty of living.

Oikawa looks up from Bokuto to see Kuroo slumped to his knees, a hand covering his injury, biting back choked sobs the best he can. Irihata has already rushed to his side now that the coast is clear, kneeling down to take a look at Kuroo’s injury.

Oikawa then turns to look at Iwaizumi, all sopping wet and shivering, but alive. Relief floods through him and strangled, incoherent noises replace words as he attempts to push himself back to his feet and reach for Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi is already in front of him, scooping his arms under Oikawa’s and around his back, ice cold lips pressed hard to his forehead.

“Thank God you’re okay,” Iwaizumi hums against his skin. “Are you hurt?”

“No, no I’m fine. But Kuroo, he’s… I couldn’t do it,” Oikawa rambles, eyes brimmed with tears.

“It’s okay. It’s over,” Iwaizumi hushes him quiet. Good thing, too. Oikawa is finally letting the aftershock of this fight get to him, now that the adrenaline has worn off. He killed. He watched people be killed. He stared into the eyes of someone he didn’t even know and watched the life fade from them, all because he had pulled a trigger.

The memory eats away at him, and he shoves it forcefully to the back of his mind, saving it to process later, when there aren’t injuries to tend to or bodies lying lifelessly on the ground.

“We need to get Kuroo to a hospital,” Oikawa mutters.

“It’s incredible that you’re still concerned for others right now,” Iwaizumi smiles, and tucks Oikawa against him, chin resting on top of his head.

 _It’s all over,_ Oikawa repeats in his head like a mantra, feeling the air around them begin to settle, the reassurance that they’re all going to go home safe after this. The safety in knowing that they’ll get to see the sunrise soon, and the sunset after that.

Oikawa closes his eyes and eases the tension out of his shoulders when Iwaizumi nuzzles into the top of his head.

“Let’s go home, Tooru.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

Iwaizumi raps his knuckles against the door before clicking it open, peeking inside to see Suga planted at his desk.

“You called for me?”

“Well, _M_ called for you,” Sugawara chuckles, setting his pen down and exhaling heavily.

“Long day?”

“Long week. The changes around here have everyone busting their asses. But, it’s a nice change of pace from the past few weeks we’ve had,” Sugawara smiles up at Iwaizumi, watching him adjust his tie. “How is that shoulder?”

“How’s your aim?” Iwaizumi shoots back, laughing when Sugawara sends him a frown, grumbling about how the joke was made too soon.

The small talk between them gets cut short when the door to M’s office opens up. Iwaizumi watches his new boss step out and walk towards him, dressed in a suit that doesn’t look a size too big like it had before.

“Someone looks happy,” Iwaizumi comments first. “How’s the new office?”

“Full of shit. Seriously, Kuroo kept a second life in there.”

Even Sugawara laughs into his hand over that one, and when Iwaizumi looks his way, he just gestures to a stack of boxes in the corner.

“So,” Iwaizumi turns back to his new boss. “Now that you’re in charge, am I calling you M? Boss?”

“M is fine for formalities. Sawamura works for everything else, though.”

Daichi sends Iwaizumi a warm look, but only briefly. Iwaizumi knows it’ll take him some time before he starts to deviate from sticking to the rulebook, so until then, he’ll play along.

“Have you heard from Kuroo at all?” Sawamura asks, walking over towards Sugawara to ask him for something.

Iwaizumi doesn’t comment on the look the two of them share that lasts longer than necessary, and instead pulls his hands from his pockets to adjust his jacket. “Yeah, last I heard he’s thoroughly enjoying retirement.”

After Skyfall, Kuroo submitted his resignation and handed the reigns to Sawamura. Having put the last of his demons to bed, he decided he was done with MI6, at least with running it. Kuroo didn’t tell any of them where he was going to go or what he was going to do, but he checked in with a few of his comrades every now and again to let them know he was alive and well.

“Here,” Sawamura passes Iwaizumi a small file.

“And this is?”

“Your next mission. I suggest you pay a visit to your Quartermaster; he’s got some new toys in store for you.”

Iwaizumi takes a look at the file, before he gives him one brief nod and tucks it under his arm. “I’ll get to work. Welcome to the team, _M_.”

“Good luck 004. And… thank you,” Sawamura gives him one last parting glance before Iwaizumi exits to head for Oikawa’s lab.

  
  


* * *

 

 

“Well,” Oikawa sighs impatiently, “you took your sweet time getting here.”

“Sorry. Formalities can’t be rushed,” Iwaizumi shuts the door behind him, walking over to see Oikawa sitting at his workstation, blueprints sprawled around him and some neat looking rifle prototype set in front of him.

“Don’t touch it,” Oikawa snaps without looking, but when he does lift his head, he smirks, catching Iwaizumi with his hand retracting away from the weapon. “ _Eager_ ,” he sneers, eyes switching to the file in Iwaizumi’s hands. “A new mission, already?”

“Go ahead, take a look,” Iwaizumi hands it to Oikawa and watches him open it up, leaning over his shoulder to read it with him.

“Looks interesting. No wonder Sawamura had my ass down here, working like a slave.”

“You’re always down here anyway,” Iwaizumi snorts. He lifts his eyes and looks across the room as though he were scanning it. “He said you’ve got new toys for me.”

“I _will_ have new toys for you. Depending on whether or not you can take care of them. You really should care more about my budget, Iwa-chan. The amount of times I’ve had to come out of pocket for you deserves a medal,” Oikawa reaches to push his glasses further up on the bridge of his nose, eyes returning to stare at a blueprint sitting in front of him.

Iwaizumi leans closer to him and closes the file, pulling it from Oikawa’s fingers and tilting his head to let his lips rest against the shell of Oikawa’s ear. “Fair enough. Then how about I treat you?”

“Treat me?”

“Tonight. My place. Dinner. I can think of a few things we can get done, including this case file.” Iwaizumi sets it flat on the desk, watching Oikawa’s lips spread slow into a smile.

“Flirting while on the job? How unprofessional, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa teases.

He places a hand on top of Iwaizumi’s, fingers trailing lightly over his skin. There’s a gentleness in the way Oikawa’s hand moves along his until they slide together in a perfect fit. Just that movement alone holds so many unspoken promises, and Iwaizumi understands them all, especially when Oikawa goes back to working away, still leaving their hands linked with his thumb smoothing across Iwaizumi’s knuckle bed.

It’s a promise for tonight, and a promise for tomorrow.

“My place at seven?”

“I better see you in an apron or I’m going home.”

“Fat chance. You’ll be wearing it.”

Oikawa squawks and Iwaizumi grins, sneaking in a quick kiss against Oikawa’s cheek before he moves to grab a chair and really get to work. Iwaizumi doesn’t miss the smile Oikawa hides behind the back of his hand. Oikawa wipes it away quickly, going back to staring at his work in complete silence. It’s a little strange, now that they can be a bit more open about the way they feel for one another, but it’s nice, being able to throw around their flirtatious banter without restriction.

Iwaizumi stares at Oikawa while he works, allowing himself small moments in between everything else to really soak in the truth that Oikawa is his, from the tousled hair atop his head down to his whacky—and somehow attractive—fashion statements.

He’ll never actually tell him, knowing his ego would swell, but Iwaizumi would do it all over again, if it meant that he could sit inside Oikawa’s lab for hours and just watch him work.

Oikawa catches him staring, and glares at him when he doesn’t flinch. “Stop that,” he wrinkles his nose, and goes back to looking at his work. “Don’t you have work to do?”

Iwaizumi glances at the clock. It’s true, he does have to get a few things done before he can go home and set up for tonight. But he’s having fun sitting here, watching Oikawa move steady hands across paper. “Trying to get rid of me already?”

“More like saving you for later,” Oikawa replies casually.

Iwaizumi shakes his head and gets up, heading for the door.

“Seven-thirty,” Oikawa says, once Iwaizumi reaches the exit. Iwaizumi turns back around to look at him, but Oikawa’s eyes don’t leave his work. “I’ll be there at seven-thirty. And you’d better have that apron.”

Iwaizumi decides not to tell him that he doesn’t own one, figuring the two of them will be wearing much less later on. He won’t tell Oikawa everything he’s got planned tonight. The element of surprise works in his favor here.

It’s not just any simple dinner date. They’ve got about a mountain of unresolved tension to tackle, and now that they’re past egging each other on through headsets, Iwaizumi plans to demolish all of that tension in one go.

“You had better be there on time,” Iwaizumi demands.

Oikawa shoots Iwaizumi his famous, crooked smirk.

“Aren’t I always?”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allie's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/eclecticinkling)  
> Remmi's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/tendousatori)

**Author's Note:**

> Reach us at our twitters!
> 
> Allie's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/eclecticinkling)  
> Remmi's [Twitter](http://twitter.com/tendousatori)


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